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PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 


THE 


CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL 


TRANSLATED BY 
Tue Rev. G. C. H. POLLEN, S.J. 
[In the Press. 


HISTORY OF THE ROMAN 
BREVIARY 


Tue Rev. A. M. Y. BAYLAY, M.A. 


FROM THE THIRD FRENCH EDITION 


- [In preparation. 


LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., 


LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA. 


PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


wnt TE ΠΤ} 
es ae δὶ ur PRINCES 
ONS) 


JAN 29 1919 
x 


fn, δ 
SLLOG ICAL SENS 


AL τὸν κα 


BY 


ν 
Mer. PIERRE BATIFFOL, Lirt.D. 


{TRANSLATION BY HENRI L. BRIANCEAU, OF ST. MARY’S SEMINARY, 
BALTIMORE, FROM THE FIFTH FRENCH EDITION OF “L’EGLISE 
NAISSANTE,” REVISED BY THE AUTHOR) 


LONGMANS, GREEN AND Co. 
FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 
LONDON, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 


1ΘῚ1 


ἀλη} οὐσίαι: 
Ε΄. Tos. ΒΕΕΘΕ, O.8.B. 


Censor deputatus 


Emprimatue : 


Epm. Can. SURMONT 
Vicarius generalis 


WESTMONASTERII, die 1 Junit, 1911 


INTRODUCTION 
TO THE FIFTH FRENCH EDITION (1911). 


THE subject I am proposing to treat, and which, if God 
permit, I intend at some future day to pursue down to the 
epoch of St. Augustine and St. Leo, is the history of the 
formation of Catholicism, that is to say, of the Church in so 
far as it is a visible, universal society, built upon the frame- 
work of a rule of faith and a hierarchy. 

In the present volume on “ Primitive Catholicism,” I 
study the origins of this formation, taking the time of St. 
Cyprian as the term of these origins. It might indeed be 
contended that their real term was reached more than half 
a century before his time, but his writings and the discus- 
sions in which he took a leading part, show so clearly that 
the doctrines and institutions of Catholicism were then gener- 
ally accepted, and, on the other hand, the historical con- 
tinuity that had governed the development of these doctrines 
and institutions up to his day, makes itself so sensibly felt 
in these same writings, that they complete for us in an admir- 
able manner the knowledge we are able to acquire of the two 
hundred years of previous Christianity. 

We must confess, however, that it is not without some 
timidity we approach the study of these two centuries of 
primitive history, seeing that the documentary evidence, 
abundant as it is, gives us but a faint idea of the early Chris- 
tian life, so varied, so complex, so deep! How much light 
we should be deprived of, had not the Hpistles of St. 
Ignatius and the Apologies of St. Justin been preserved! 

v 


vil INTRODUCTION 


On the other hand, how much more light we should have, 
were the ‘De Ecclesia” of Melito and the ‘‘ Memorabilia ” 
of Hegesippus still extant! The discovery of the “‘ Didaché” 
has been a genuine revelation and has obliged scholars to 
correct many an inference. So too has the discovery of the 
Odes of Solomon. The preservation of the texts, as well as 
their loss, is something accidental. For this reason history, 
when dealing with centuries concerning which we have few 
and scanty documents, is a science of only approximate cor- 
rectness, always susceptible of revision, except as regards 
certain manifest facts, and some general features inferred 
from several series of concordant observations. Such is 
the condition of primitive ecclesiology. Its history is made 
up of a few features which, clearly marked from the be- 
ginning, acquire with each successive generation a more 
vigorous and expressive prominence. ‘Thus for instance, 
as early as the Apostolic age, Christianity presents itself as 
a corporate religion, a brotherhood which swarms over 
the earth without diminishing its cohesion, which everywhere 
forms itself into co-operating societies of exactly the same 
character. These little Christian communities have the 
same faith, the same worship, the same authorities. That 
such a phenomenon should constantly recur in Mithraism, 
for instance, would not seem strange to us; but it surprises 
us in the case of Christianity, because we are little accus- 
tomed to look at the latter from this point of view. The 
best definition ever given of our religion is that drawn up by 
Tertullian, when he writes: ‘‘ Corpus swmus de conscientia 
religionis et disciplinae unitate et sper foedere,” meaning to 
say that the whole Christian community is this association, 
this corpus, and that in each particular Christian community 
there is identity of hierarchy as well as of discipline and of 
faith. Now this is nothing but concrete, living and histori- 
cal Catholicism; and what is true of the Christianity of 
Tertullian’s time is equally true of the Christianity of St. 


INTRODUCTION vil 


Clement’s time, and of the Christianity of the earliest 
Christian generation. Christianity was born Catholic, for 
there is identity of structure between Apostolic Christianity 
and the Christianity of about the year 200. 

That, between the early days of the Christian community 
and the year 200 or 250, there were elements which devel- 
oped, and that there were also sinkings, so to speak, is be- 
yond dispute: St. Thomas Aquinas states more than once 
that the Minor Orders were implicit in the diaconate, and 
were separated from it at the proper moment, which came 
comparatively late; on the other hand, charisms disappeared 
at the proper time, prophecy was regulated with religious 
care for the discernment of the spirits by which it was in- 
spired, and in such a manner as to preserve the deposit of 
revealed faith, which, after the Apostles, was susceptible of 
no new acquisitions, and which was, by divine right, entrusted 
to the guardianship of the bishops, the successors of the 
Apostles. Heresies, of which we know names and specific 
doctrines, appeared now and then: but the Church was so 
constituted that by the very fact of their springing up they 
differentiated themselves from her, and only served to give 
her the opportunity to define herself more firmly and dis- 
tinctly. Built by the Apostles who knew only Jesus and 
Him crucified, the Church knew that only which she held 
from the Apostles: she was not, in this first period of her 
existence, in an amorphous state; history does not represent 
her as ἃ mere spiritual movement whose institutions and 
doctrines were determined by or even borrowed from the 
civilization through which it passed: she was a Gospel, an 
apostolate, a tradition, a worship, an hierarchical- society, 
one Church made up of many Churches, a unity preserved 
by the unity of the cathedra Petri. All this she was con- 
scious of being. Far from being an ever-advancing and 
progressive evolution, she was from her origin a living and 
divinely assisted preservation of the gift made by God to 


ὙΠ] INTRODUCTION 


men in the Incarnation. All this and only this she con- 
tinues to be. 

In speaking thus I draw the doctrinal conclusions which 
form the leading portions of my book, but these conclusions 
are only conclusions, and my investigation remains an in- 
vestigation, and is conducted, as no one has ventured to 
deny, in full accordance with the historical method. 

ἘΠΕ 

In the ““ Theologische Literaturzeitung”’ for 16 Jan., 
1909, Professor Harnack, has given a notice of ‘ Primitive 
Catholicism ” which I feel I must transcribe here almost in 
its entirety. I could not have wished my essay to receive 
more attention and favourable consideration than it has 
received in this notice from the most illustrious Protestant 
historian of the present time. 

“| | . The author,” he writes, ‘‘has rendered to his 
Church . . . a most signal service, for one could not under- 
take with greater special knowledge of the subject to estab- 
lish the original identity of Christianity, Catholicism, and 
the Roman primacy. He does not seek to prove his thesis 
by means of metahistoric speculation which does not con- 
cern itself with the chronology of events, but confines him- 
self to the territory of facts and their consequences, and 
seeks to furnish a truly historical demonstration. 

“That Roman and Catholic are identical I proved as a 
Protestant historian some twenty-two years ago, in my 
‘History of Dogma,’ though with certain reserves which 
the author strives, of course, to discard in most cases. In 
that work I had likewise endeavoured to prove that, in the 
history of the development of Christianity, we must assign 
to the rise of the Catholic element an earlier date than Pro- 
testant historians have generally admitted. Since then this 
thesis has been still more strongly accentuated (see the well- 
known work of Wernle,! for instance), and well-informed 


'(Wernle’s work may be found in an English translation, under the 
title, ‘‘ The Beginuings of Christianity ”’. ] 


INTRODUCTION 1X 


Protestant historians of the Church will no longer feel 
scandalized at the statement that some of the principal ele- 
ments of Catholicism go back to the apostolic age and belong 
to its very heart. Thus the view of Church history taken 
by Catholics would seem to triumph, without their having 
themselves done anything to secure their victory. 

‘‘ Yet, they have hardly any reason—in fact, absolutely 
no reason—for crying out victory. 

‘For, first the chasm that separates Jesus from the 
Apostles has not yet been bridged over, nor can it be. 
Secondly, the same must be said in regard to the movements 
which were beginning or ending in their time. Thirdly, 
the value, the sphere of action, and the hierarchy of the 
factors at work within the complex organism of Christian 
thought and the forms of ecclesiastical life were constantly 
changing until by the third century the dominant note of 
these factors became displaced. Fourthly and lastly, an 
abnormal element which was active in the beginning, later 
on died away, namely the element of the immediate sub- 
jection to the Divine (vetua), and the element of individual 
liberty which resulted therefrom. As a consequence of all 
this, the Church underwent unceasing and essential changes 
in spite of her continuity: changes the successive stages of 
which began about the years 30, 60, 90, 130, 160, and 190. 

‘But the facts recalled in the third and in the fourth 
place are such that one may be unacquainted with them and 
yet not be taxed with ignorance, in the ordinary sense 
of the word. They are imponderables that cannot be re- 
ferred to definite and special sources. As to the chasm that 
separates the Apostles from all that, during their hfetime, 
made its appearance in the Church, it can be filled up by 
invoking their authority which extended to all ; and as to the 
conformity between Jesus and the Apostles, the old arsenal 
of exegesis can seem to account for it in a satisfactory 
manner. Hence it is possible to establish, by impressionist 


x INTRODUCTION 


arguments, that the Catholic concept of the infant Church 
is historically the true one, ie. that Christianity, Catholi- 
cism, and Romanism are, in the light of history, perfectly 
identical. This is what Batiffol has done, by availing him- 
self of the best results of Protestant scholarship in this 
direction, and by using them in a calm and scientific ex- 
position, with that solid competence which is his character- 
istic and which has made his name so well known. 

“Tn this exposition there are few inaccuracies, in the 
worst sense of the term (except in what he says of Jesus). 
But, in tracing the line of historical development, he has, at 
every stage, overlooked the slight deviations which, taken 
together, cause most momentous changes of direction. We 
have thus, instead of a curve, a straight line which, with 
such a method, it would be easy to prolong even to the 
Catholicism of the ‘Syllabus’ and of the Encyclical letter 
of 1907. To the exulting words of the introduction, pro- 
claiming that Catholicism is still to-day what it was in the 
first century, and that Protestantism, on the contrary ‘may 
claim to be a modern ideology, but has in its essence 
nothing in common with the Infant Church,’ we may op- 
pose the following historical estimate: The Catholicism of 
the year 250—to say nothing of the year 1908—possesses, 
in common with primitive Christianity, a number of ele- 
ments which are all lacking in Protestantism. But these 
elements have gradually acquired in Catholicism a value, a 
sphere of action, a proportion that greatly differ from what 
they had at the beginning, and have changed the essence of 
piety and the life of religion to such an extent that Roman 
Catholicism can justly claim to be an ancient state with an 
ancient ideology, and yet in its essence it has ttle in com- 
mon with infant Christianrty. 

‘* However, I would earnestly recommend those Protest- 
ants who are interested in the history of the Church, not 
to overlook this work, but to study it thoroughly, to draw 


INTRODUCTION ΧΙ 


from it all that it can give, and carefully to notice, page 
after page, the various places where Batiffol has failed to 
observe, in tracing out the line of evolution, this or that 
small break. For instance, it is easy—and I must say, it is 
most important—to prove that, even in the first letter of 
Clement, there is a very big dose of Roman Catholicism ; 
but it is at least equally important to show clearly in what 
Christianity as set forth and described by Clement differs 
from Cyprian’s Catholicism. The chasm between them is 
almost immeasurable, and yet Batiffol tells us nothing about 
it, whilst—of course—he does not fail to emphasize the 
points on which both agree. The eyes of this investigator 
—gereat as is his courage and honesty—are ‘held’ so 
that he does not see what there is to see. While it is his 
earnest wish that the study of history should give us a 
yearning for unity and the intuition of the true faith, we 
may express the more reasonable and perhaps more hopeful 
wish, that he may learn to perceive the shades of thought 
and of discipline, to notice the differences, and to sum up 
the total effect in which they issue. 

‘““The author’s researches are partly carried on in the 
form of a dialogue with me, because, on many points, I am 
closer to him than most Protestant historians, and also be- 
cause, on other points, I stand particularly in his way. I 
thank him for his high appreciation of my works, and I need 
not assure him that I shall make a thorough and detailed 
examination of all these topics. I am very sorry that the 
new edition of my ‘History of Dogma’ is already in the 
press, and that I am unable there to discuss the matter with 
him.” 

In the Preface to my third French edition, I had occa- 
sion to define my attitude towards this criticism of Professor 
Harnack’s, which marks out so neatly and so courteously our 
reciprocal positions. If I return to this same passage now 
it is because the views it expresses have undergone fresh 


ΧΙ INTRODUCTION 


developments in a recent book by the same author, ‘ Hnt- 
stehung und Entwickelung der Kirchenverfassung und des 
Kirchenrechts in den zwei ersten Jahrhunderten’’.! 

* * 

In this new book Professor Harnack adheres to the con- 
tention which underlies his ‘‘ What is Christianity ?”’ namely 
that between Jesus and His Apostles a deep ditch runs, to 
fill up which, though the task is in reality impossible, an 
attempt has been made by casting in arguments drawn from 
“the antiquated arsenal of exegetics”. It will not be ex- 
pected of me that I should speak of the value of exegetics 
with such detachment. But in regard to this particular 
point I desire to indicate the kind of value which, as it ap- 
pears to me, any one endowed with the true instinct of a 
historian must needs attach to the texts which Professor 
Harnack sacrifices, and the considerations he neglects. 

In the first place, he conceives that the famous text in 
Matthew xvi. 18-19 is condemned “by all the rules of his- 
torical criticism” (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 3). To me, on the 
contrary, this text appears to be in the strictest relation 
with the plan of the first Gospel, and I note that criticism 
is inclining to recognize, much more categorically than. it 
would have ventured to do as late as ten years ago, the 
‘‘ ecclesiastical’’ character of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and 
the interest it takes in the ἐκκλησία, In an ἐκκλησία 
which is taught, and is governed by those who teach it, 
above all by the Apostle Peter. The promise made by 
Jesus to Peter (Matt. xvi. 18-19) is not then an intrusive 
text, introduced into the narrative of Matthew surreptiti- 
ously, as an after-thought, and at a very late date, as Dr. 
Resch contended ; it is in close harmony with the spirit of 
the first Gospel, as has been argued by no one better than 


1 Leipzig, 1910. An English translation of this work has since ap- 
peared under the title of ‘‘The Constitution and Law of the Church in 
the First Two Centuries’. Translated by F. L. Pogson, M.A., edited by 
H. Ὁ. A. Major, M.A. ; 


INTRODUCTION ΧΙ] 


by Dr. Wellhausen, unless it be Dr. Jiilicher.'!. The fact is 
the first Gospel is by no means a document of uncertain 
origin. Professor Harnack this time has shown better 
than any one else that it has Palestine for its near 
horizon, that it is the work of the Palestinian Church now 
liberated from the Law and favourable to converts not of 
Jewish race, that it is a community-book, a ‘‘ Gemeinde- 
buch”; that it keeps the community in the foreground, 
and might well be called the first liturgical book of the 
Christian Church, drawn up for it in the days when it had 
but recently disengaged itself from its Judeo-Christian 
bonds.2. But if so, are we not entitled to infer that the 
promise of Jesus to Peter, through its incorporation in St. 
Matthew’s Gospel, is attested as belonging to the Jerusalem 
tradition which went back to the first Christian generation ? 
And if so, its claim to be historical, instead of having against 
it, ‘‘all the rules of historical criticism,’ has, in reality, 
nothing against it save that it oversteps the limits of what 
a certain system of exegetics, if it is to hold its ground, is 
able to accept in the contents of the recorded teaching of 
Jesus. 

Secondly, Professor Harnack insists that, when we have 
set aside Matt. xvi. 18-19 as unhistorical, there remains no 
other direct external bond to connect Jesus with the 
Church, however we may strive to magnify the mappreci- 
able by pleading the highly embryonic condition of the 
Church in the first hour of its existence. We must reply, 
however, that at least one other fact remains which Profes- 
sor Harnack has acknowledged to be undeniable, namely 


1 J. WELLHAUSEN, ‘‘ Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien” (Berlin, 
1909), p. 70. A. JtLicuHer, ‘‘Kinleitung in das Neue Testament,” Tu- 
bingen, 1906), p. 265: ‘* He [the author of the first Gospel] has written a 
Catholic Gospel and it is its genuine Catholic character which gained for 
it the first place among the Gospels. . . . Init the fundamental elements 
of ancient Catholicism are ready prepared.”’ 

2A. Harnack, ‘‘Lukas der Arzt” (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 118-20. 
‘¢ Neue Untersuchungen” (Leipzig 1911), p. 94. 


XIV INTRODUCTION 


that the disciples of Jesus and the men who believed in 
Him were those who formed the Church, and further that 
the ‘‘ Twelve” had been appointed by Jesus to propagate 
His teaching and to be one day the judges of the ‘“‘ twelve 
tribes”. There remains too another fact equally undeni- 
able, namely, the place held by Peter amongst the Twelve. 
Professor Harnack has observed that, in a purely Messianic 
perspective, there could have been no room for a chief 
among the Twelve, and this observation is just; but from 
the time when Jesus was still with His disciples, Peter was 
the first, and was spokesman for the rest; he was ‘‘an der 
Spitze,” at the head. Again, just as in the Palestinian en- 
vironment in which the Gospel of St. Matthew was edited, 
it was held to be certain that Jesus at Caesarea Philippi 
had designated Peter as the rock on which He would build 
His Church, so in the Johannine environment it was held to 
be certain that the risen Christ had entrusted His flock to 
him that he might be its Pastor. Peter then had a unique 
office. Professor Harnack reproaches the ‘‘ Protestant exe- 
getists and historians for their disposition to underestimate 
the importance of the place held by Peter among the 
Apostles and in the primitive community” (‘‘ Entstehung,” 
p. 6), but does he not himself underestimate it when he 
endeavours to explain this place of precedence by the natural 
qualities which can be ascribed to St. Peter? Again, in 
the Christian community of the Apostolic age Professor 
Harnack finds that there must have been the following 
elements working—something of the communism of the 
Quakers, and of a ‘‘mild pneumatic anarchism,” but 
hkewise, as a counter-force, the Jewish spirit of order, of 
magistracy, of law, which was then all-potent, together with 
the ideal of the Kingdom of God which was striving for 
realization. By way of hypothesis, let us suppose that this 
was so. But Professor Harnack concedes to us that, in 
addition to the authority of the Old Testament from which 


INTRODUCTION XV 


this Jewish spirit was derived, there was potent also “‘ the 
authority of the words of the Lord” which was the source 
of the maxims of the Christian life. This is most true, but 
it is not all, and Professor Harnack further concedes to us 
that there was another and last element ‘‘ the prerogative of 
the Twelve and the infallible authority (thanks to the 
abiding aid of the Holy Spirit) of the community”’. These 
were ““ the absolute authorities which rigidly limited and 
curbed the liberty of the individual,’ and assured the 
“conformity” of all (‘‘ Hntstehung,” p. 18). This conces- 
sion is of capital importance, but we must insist on its 
going a step further. How could the prerogative of the 
Twelve have succeeded in establishing its own authority as 
an intermediary between authorities so holy and absolute, 
had it not been based on a commission emanating from 
Christ in person ? 

In this way then we can connect the Church with Christ 
through the Apostles. The theory on which we rest may 
be ‘fan old theory” but none the less it is valid, and Pro- 
fessor Harnack appears to have nothing better to substitute 
in its place than a peculiarly fragile modernity, for such 
surely is his theory that the Church came to its birth 
“automatically,” being born of ‘‘the fraternal community of 
men who through Jesus had found God, of men who felt 
themselves to be led by the Spirit of God, and who, faithful 
to the theocratic ideal of the Jews, believed in its realization 
through Jesus” (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 3). It is surely astonish- 
ing that these disciples of the first hour should have had a 
religious conscience so modern as to impel them “to find 
God through Jesus” (it is Ritschl’s formula),! seeing that, as 
Jews and children of Abraham, they needed no longer to 
find God, but only to find the Messiah. How too could 
their expectation of the realization of the kingdom, even 


'W. Sanday, ‘‘ Christologies Ancient and Modern” (Oxford, 1910), 
p- 82. 


ΧΥΙ INTRODUCTION 


when eked out by the charismatic inspiration of individuals 
among them, give birth “‘ automatically” to a society? But 
the real fact is these disciples believed that Jesus was the 
Messiah, the Son of God; and straightway they were in 
possession of a truth which caused their Judaism to strain 
and burst the bonds of its older organization, like new wine 
in an old bottle. It was this truth which was the immedi- 
ate cause that created the fraternity which separated them 
from the other Jews, and rendered them indifferent to the 
privilege of being Jews ; and it was in this truth and this fra- 
ternity that they found an authority in which that of Christ 
was continued, namely, that of the Apostles appointed by 
Christ. Thus from the very outset of its historical existence, 
Christianity was a formed faith, a visible society, a living 
authority. 


* * 
* 


Of these three terms, to which for the purposes of the 
present discussion we may limit the description of Catholi- 
cism, at all events in the abstract, the second is firmly 
maintained by Professor Harnack against Professor Sohm. 

I have explained in my book (pp. 180, 143 and foll.) the 
position taken up by this eminent jurist in his ‘ Kirchen- 
recht” (1892). Professor Harnack (‘‘ Entstehung,” p, 122) 
does not hesitate to say that “next to the Catholic theory, 
that of Professor Sohm is the most coherent that has been 
propounded” as a solution of the problem of the Church’s 
origins. Professor Sohm, I should add, has quite recently 
resumed his advocacy of this theory in a new essay.! 

Professor Sohm’s theory is a curious product of the 
Lutheran and juristic minds in combination. As a jurist 
he cannot but represent to himself Catholicism as a legal 
organism, the legitimacy of which is guaranteed by its his- 


ΤῊ. Sohm, “‘ Wesen und Ursprung des Katholizismus”. Abhand- 
lungen der Philol. Histor. Klasse d. K. Siichs. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. B. 27, 
H. 3 (1909). : 


INTRODUCTION XVil 


torical continuity, which continuity, however, he assures us, 
is verified only in the Roman Catholic Church. Professor 
Sohm deduces the whole of Catholicism from one initial 
postulate, just as one deduces each separate corollary from 
one and the same theorem—for every jurist is in his way a 
geometrician. Asa Lutheran, he postulates as the initial 
fact from which this logical development has issued a certain 
state of mental confusion which was not deliberate but arose 
inadvertently and inevitably, Primitive Christianity (‘‘ Ur- 
christentum ”) could not fail to transform itself into Catho- 
licism because it was not as yet in a condition to distinguish 
between the body mystical of Christ and the corpus or “‘ em- 
pirical” association of the faithful among themselves. It 
had only one word, the word ecclesia, to denominate the in- 
visible Church of faith, and that legal and contingent in- 
stitution which is the visible Church. ‘This supposed 
confusion involves that Christianity, though it passed thus 
quickly into Catholicism, was not Catholic at the very first ; 
but, strange to say, when this confusion had arisen, ‘‘it was 
necessary to wait till Luther came, before the distinction, 
lost sight of so soon after the beginning, between the invis- 
ible and visible Church could be recovered.” 

Let us come, however, to a summary of the facts, to see 
how Professor Sohm presents them. The faith of the first 
believers, whether they were dispersed over the world, or 
resident in the same city, or gathered together in the same 
house, had, we are assured, its expression in the maxim: 
‘‘ Where two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there am 1 in the midst of them”. Initial Christendom 
had no other conception of the Church than this, and that 
is why it knew only of the Church and not of the Christian 
community. But soon the presence of the Spirit of Christ 
begins to manifest itself by means of charismata: the Spirit 
inspires, the Spirit speaks, the faithful are taught and led 
by the Spirit, and he who has received the charisma of the 


b 


XVill INTRODUCTION 


Spirit becomes the presbyter. It is then that for the first 
time the mutual interpenetration of the Spirit and the com- 
munity reveals itself, and we touch upon the identification of 
the invisible with the visible. The order of legality is 
about to appear. The religious gatherings in which Chris- 
tians came together ‘for the word’ were delivered over to 
a ‘pneumatic anarchy”; but the gatherings in which they 
celebrated the Eucharist required that order should be 
observed, and hence that there should be a president, and 
ministers, and that there should be an investiture of offices : 
in short the life of the community required a hierarchy. 
As soon as this investiture came to be regarded as giving 
“the Spirit,” Catholicism was born; and this development 
was completed at the time when the ‘“‘ Prima Clementis ” 
was written. 

We perceive that for Professor Sohm the “Church” 
cannot rightly claim to be more than a purely religious, 
spiritual entity, a soul without a body; in proportion as it 
takes to itself a body it tends to become Catholic. There is 
this of piquancy in the theory that the larger the part in 
history it accords to ““ Catholicism,” the more it requires of 
Lutheranism to liberalize and enfeeble itself. But there is 
also this of error in it that it represents the first Christian 
meetings as displays of ‘“‘ pneumatic anarchy”’; for I have 
shown in my book (pp. 28-30) what part the outpourings of 
the Spirit took in that earliest phase of Christian life, and I 
have shown that the charismatic element appears invariably 
as one that is subordinated; and Professor Harnack has 
likewise said: ‘“‘The reception of a charisma exempted no 
one from the necessity of having his mandate recognized 
and controlled by the community ” (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 19). 
It is a further error in Professor Sohm’s theory that it 
allows no place for the prerogative of the Apostles. The 
common life, he acknowledges, required a hierarchy, but 
what caused this common life to spring up? Was it not the 


INTRODUCTION XIX 


fruit of the apostolic preaching? And was the Apostolate a 
charisma, and did it tolerate anarchy? All primitive history 
answers, No. The gravest, however, of the errors into 
which Professor Sohm falls is that of supposing initial Chris- 
tianity to have been a soul without a body. Professor Har- 
nack fastens on this error with a sharpness which is not 
undeserved: Sohm, he says, may profess what faith he 
pleases in regard to this pot, but as for the Church of the 
first hour being what he imagines, we can only say, No it 
was not: had that Church been deprived of every terrestrial 
element, what else could it have been ‘‘ save a mere idea, the 
object of the faith of each separate Christian in isolation from 
all the others” (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 148). The reader who 
will refer to my book (pp. 146, 151) will find that I have 
not been more severe than Professor Harnack in my criticism 
of this theory of the priority of the invisible Church, classical 
as it has been up to the present day in the schools of Pro- 
testant scholasticism. But what an accession of force this 
criticism now receives under the pen of Professor Harnack! 
The invisible Church, he writes, is nothing more than a 
numerus praedestinatorum et credentium, the units of which 
are nothing for one another, more than are parallel lines 
which only meet at infinity. He who speaks of a Church, 
speaks of an assemblage, an assemblage of the called and 
the chosen, and this implies ‘‘ something of a social char- 
acter, which is already a present reality on earth, for on 
earth the called are the Church of God, and only in this 
character have they intercourse with one another”. In fact, 
the word of Christ: ‘‘ Where two or three are gathered to- 
gether in my name there am 1 in the midst of them,” turns 
against Professor Sohm, since it promises that Christ will be 
wherever there is a concrete society, even if it be one of only 
two or three of His disciples; it is an invitation to join such 
societies. Hence ‘to associate is for those who bear the 
name of Christ not a secondary or unessential feature in the 


b * 


φᾷ INTRODUCTION 


idea of the Church, it is a feature essentially involved in the 
idea itself which is only realized through the fact of the 
faithful thus associating themselves” (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 149). 
The Church is essentially visible and social. 

Primitive Christendom is then a visible society, as Pro- 
fessor Harnack agrees with me in maintaining, Moreover, 
this visible society bears in its womb a living authority; a 
living authority, that is, by contrast with a written author- 
ity. This living authority, if we are to believe Professor 
Sohm, is nothing more than the outcome of an evolution of 
charismata; the gifts of the Spirit are transformed eventu- 
ally into “‘liturgies,’ in the Greek sense of the term, that 
is, into local and permanent liturgies which become offices 
for life. The ““ Prima Clementis”’ reveals to us the evolution 
at this stage. But here again Professor Harnack is before 
us in his criticism. The ‘‘ Prima Clementis”” marks a very 
instructive moment in the development of the hierarchy, 
but it reveals to us “‘nothing which is essentially new”. It 
claims an ecclesiastical right which is not of human origin 
but divine, since it declares that the office of the ἐπισκοπή 15 
for life, in virtue of the divine will and the divine revelation. 
But in this respect the “‘ Prima Clementis”’ does not differ 
from the decree of the Apostles in Acts xv. (‘ Entstehung,” 
Ῥ. 159). In reality, concludes Professor Harnack, ‘ the 
divine origin of ecclesiastical right is as old as the Church 
itself” (p. 161). I take note of this concession without 
however wishing to exaggerate its bearing; for this divine 
right which Professor Harnack opposes to Professor Sohm 
has over the human and contingent right imagined by the 
latter no other advantage than that of historical priority. 
Professor Harnack makes it as ancient as the Church, and 
makes ‘‘ the Church”’ congenital with primitive Christianity, 
and this is a great advance on his part. Nevertheless this 
right which he claims to call divine springs, if thus con- 
ceived, only from the requirements of Christendom regarded 


INTRODUCTION ΧΧΙ 


as a visible society, and it springs from it merely as a legal 
and formal element that is necessarily postulated by the 
Christian life which has to propagate and establish itself. 
It is divine for this sole reason that the new religion is 
theocratic. Thus, ultimately, Professor Harnack does not, 
any more than Professor Sohm, stand for the doctrine of 
any such juridical organisation as the Christian life has 
required, as is clear from the formal assent he gives to this 
proposition which he quotes from Professor Sohm: ‘ The 
natural desire of man is to externalize his religion” (Ρ. 
177). Man by his nature demands a law, an authority, 
and by demanding it he has created it; such is the sense in 
which Professor Harnack speaks of divine right. We, 
however, cannot but observe how full is the evidence that 
the Church from the first hour was a society under a 
government. It was not governed by any mere abstract 
authority ; or by the imperious requirements of charismata, 
which were variable, obscure, intermittent, always needing 
to be verified, quickly discredited ; nor by any statute 
spontaneously elaborated and embodying the experience of 
all the Churches, for such experience would have produced 


‘ Professor Harnack has written elsewhere in the same book: “ The 
Reformation [of the sixteenth century] not only destroyed the ecclesi- 
astical constitution (‘ Kirchenverfassung’) of the Middle Ages, but also 
broke off all connexion with the ‘ Kirchenverfassung’ of the second and 
first centuries”. He adds: ‘‘The people of West Europe are still either 
Catholic or Protestant. Tertium adhuc non datur. It is Luther who 
created for them this alternative, and it is an alternative which concerns 
us more than all the philosophical and scientific culture of the present 
time, or all its technical applications. The people are, however, on the 
look out for a tertiwm genus Ecclesiae under which they may find shelter 
for their higher life’ (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 120). It is indeed interesting 
to have from Professor Harnack this acknowledgment of the bankruptcy 
of the Reformation in regard to all its historical and religious pretensions, 
and this appeal from it to an unlimited modernism. For it is just what I 
myself said (Fourth French Edit. p. xiii) when I wrote the words against 
which Professor Harnack has protested: ‘‘ This being the historical con- 
ception of the Church, Protestantism may claim to be a modern ideology, 
but it has in its essence nothing in common with the Infant Church ”. 
But I have no wish to insist on these considerations. 


Xx INTRODUCTION 


only a universal variation; but by a living authority emanat- 
ing we know from what quarter, and alone able to 
explain the unity of the institutions founded and the credit 
they enjoyed. The ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ declares all this in 
plain terms, and what else is the ‘‘ Decree of the Apostles” 
save the most striking manifestation of the existence of this 
authority, and of the lawfulness of its claims ? 

The prerogative of the Apostles is then the true key to 
the question of the origin of the Church: by this preroga- 
tive is explained the initial fact that Christianity is a society 
and not a mere preaching, a society ordered and governed 
and not a “charismatic anarchy”; by this prerogative is ex- 
plained the fact that the preaching of the Gospel was fixed 
and defined as a “‘rule of faith” and as an “‘ Apostolic tradi- 
tion”. The second century did not create doctrinal state- 
ments at the bidding of its needs; it only acquired a clearer 
understanding of those doctrines, of which the “‘ presbyters ” 
had preserved the remembrance. What Professor Sohm 
holds to have been an initial confusion, and Professor Har- 
nack holds to have been an initial logic, we hold to have 
been a thing intended. Let the reader decide which of these 
three theories is most in accordance with the facts. 

In treating of the Infant Church I have spoken of the 
rule of faith only in so far as it is of the nature of a rule, 
without touching on its contents, on the doctrines which the 
faith affirms, that being a subject the study of which 
belongs properly to the history of dogma. I do not over- 
look that in those histories of dogma which are the most 
widely circulated, ‘‘ Catholicism” is described as the faith 
which found expression at the end of the second century, 
in a form which Professor Harnack is pleased to regard as 
the outcome of Hellenistic syncretism (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 
184). I have not touched on this discussion, my purpose 
being to treat not of the object of this official ecclesiastical 
teaching, but of its essential character and origin. Pro- 


INTRODUCTION XXll1 


fessor Harnack, on the other hand, prefers to consider 
Catholicism under the former of these aspects. Let 
me take note, however, that, in his sketch of the main 
outlines of Tertullian’s doctrine, which he takes as the ex- 
pression of this Catholicism, he does not hesitate to write : 
‘‘ All these points of doctrine, as we can prove texts in 
hand, manifest their presence already in the first century 
and in the writings of the New Testament: the only differ- 
ence is that some of them manifest it more distinctly, 
others more faintly. . . . Catholicism is thus, if we in- 
clude in it its embryonic phases, as ancient as the Church 
itself.” (‘‘ Entstehung,” p. 182). Irepeat that the question 
treated in this passage is as to the contents of the rule of 
faith; moreover, affirmations of this kind when made by 
Professor Harnack are never unaccompanied by revisions 
and attenuations which must not be disregarded. Τῇ, 
however, we call attention to these particular affirmations, 
it is because they have their bearing on my own present 
thesis of the continuity and tenacity of the rule of faith in 
the Infant Church. 


Paris, 15 March, 1911. 


νὸν ὌΝ ἡ 


} πὸ "ὦ τῳ fy ὰ pve ΠῚ ih bey) 


ΓΝ sa yf ai ota ᾿ ἕω OB ἃ; ait, Pt ie 
5 le (i), ia ri iyi Ai mali ! ι ; 


ear, ἘΝ ΕἾ ͵ is ‘ 
Be oe of dial αν ἐν (leith We te Vy ἘΣ 


at ia 

‘ i “ἢ 4 “a 
as ey) Le 

i 


TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


Inrropuction ΤῸ THE Firra Frencu Eprrron (1911). 


CHAPTER I. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CHRISTIANITY. 


I. Had the Judaism of the Dispersion any tendency to become a Church ?— 
Legal and social status of the Dispersion—Religious and national 
institutions—Jewish hellenization, nothing apart from the religious 
and national life—Proselytism aims at imposing circumcision, and un- 
cireumcized proselytes do not belong to God’s people—In what way the 
body of proselytes paved the way for Christianity : 

II. Political confusion of Christianity with Judaism—In the year 64 this 
confusion comes to an end—Testimony of Tacitus—Christianity is 
legally forbidden—Pliny and Trajan—Nero, the first to interdict Chris- 
tianity : testimony of Tertullian and of Suetonius : 4 

ΠῚ. Christianity, no mere spiritual movement—Subordination of the out- 


PAGE 


17 


pourings of the Spirit, i.e. of charisms, to the good order of the com- 


munities and to the received faith—Christianity, no mere brotherhood 
of love and of mutual aid—Christianity, a religion of cities—Chris- 
tianity, not a religion of colleges—Christianity, a religio alicita and 
a corpus or association : : 5 : : : Ξ 


CHAPTER IT. 


THE INFANT CHURCH. 


I. The apostolate of the first Christian generation, not an institution 
borrowed from Judaism—Various meanings of the word Apostle—The 
apostolate, not a charism—Notion of the apostolate, in St. Paul—The 
Apostles of the cireumcized—The Twelve—There are not three con- 
tradictory notions of the apostolate—The apostolate, a principle of 
unity and authority laid down by Christ Himself 

II. Churches and the Church in the first Christian generation—The earliest 
missions to the Gentiles—The decree of the Apostles—Peter and Paul 
at Antioch, and the ee of the unity of the new people in Jesus 
Christ . 

Christianity, not a“ wisdom,’ > but a catechesis—Notion of the de- 
posit of faith, and of the Apostle as pledge for the divine authority of 
the Gospel—The initiation, baptism in the name of Christ—Worship 
in common, Sunday synaxis, Kucharist—Mutual ee expul- 
sion of the sinner—Those who preside : : 


ΧΧΥ 


37 


55 


64 


ΧΧΥῚΪ TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The assembly of the faithful of the same city, called a Church— 
The Churches of Christ—The Church of God—The Church, Christ’s 
mystical body—The tertiwm genus inaugurated upon earth by Chris- 
tianity ᾿ : A : : : ᾿ . : : . 


Excursus A, 


The Church in the Gospel, value of Matt. xv1. 18-19 


CHAPTER III. 
THE INFANT; CHURCH (conrinvep). 


I. The second Christian generation—The Pauline Epistles of the captivity 
—The saints, the episcopi, and the deacons of Philippi—Kcclesiology 
of the “ Didaché—Kcclesiology of the “‘ Prima Petri”—St. Paul’s last 
instructions, ecclesiology of the Pastoral Epistles—Johannine ecclesi- 
ology . : ᾿ : Ξ Ξ : Ἢ : : ; : 3 

II. The Epistle of St. Clement of Rome—Transformation of the notion of 
charism—Discipline by means of authority—The received faith—The 
canon of tradition—The hierarchy—The intervention of Rome at 
Corinth—Criticism of Sohm’s theory : : : : ν : 

III. The Epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch—Discipline—The hierarchy— 
The unity of each Church—Heresy—The “dogmas” of the Lord and 
of the Apostles—The bishop makes the unity of each Church—Jesus 
makes the unity of the ““ Catholic Church ”—The primacy of the Roman 
Church ὃ ‘ : ἐ : : : ὃ : 3 : 

Conclusion, the Infant Church is Catholic 


Excursus Β. 


Critical examination of Protestant theories on the formation of Catholi- 
cism 


CHAPTER IV. 
THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS. 


The ecclesiological principles of Ireneus, not his creation : : : 
I. St. Polycarp of Smyrna: discipline and tradition—Solidarity of Churches 
—Irenreus and Polycarp—Anicetus and Polycarp—The Martyrium 
Polycarpi and the word “ Catholic ’’—Papias: his notion of tradition 
—Hegesippus: succession of bishops, the justification of the tradition 
—Catholicity of tradition—Abercius: the same criterion of faith— 
Pantenus and the presbyters, on the true tradition—Is the epilogue of 

the Epistle to Diognetus by Pantsenus?—The Secunda Clementis 

and the “ Pneumatic” Church—Dionysius of Corinth and the Roman 
Church—KEcclesiology of the “ Shepherd” of Hermas—St. Justin: the 
deposit of faith, apostolic tradition, heresies—The catholicity of the 
Church—Christendom, as seen by Celsus: heresies and the “great 
Church ”—Synthesis of the preceding testimonies : : 

II. Importance of the ecclesiology of St. Irensus—Catholicity and unanimity 
of Christendom—Sources of unanimity: the Prophets, the Lord, the 
Apostles—The succession of bishops authenticates the tradition of the 
Apostles—The Holy Ghost and the indefectibility of the Church—The 
primacy of the Roman Church—Criticisms of Gnosticism : it is a re- 
ΠΩΣ against the existing Church—Synthesis of the principles of 
reneous : 6 ἢ 4 . : : ἐ : . 


69 


75 


97 


122 


. 131 
. 142 


. 143 


164 


- 164 


197 


TABLE OF CONTENTS XXVil 


PAGE 
III. Contemporary facts—The Church and the spirit of prophecy—In what 
way Montanism is a novelty—How it is eliminated without any general 
crisis—The question of Easter—Conflict between Pope Victor and 


Polycrates of Ephesus—Nature of Victor’s intervention : ͵ . 217 
Catholic and Roman, a criticism of Harnack : ; : : i . 228 
Excursvus C. 

Marcionism and Catholicism : : : : Ἢ : : : . 230 


Excursts D. 


The end of Judo-Christianity . ἢ ς : : : : ; . 288 
CHAPTER V. 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 


Clement’s so-called characteristic 5 ; : 3 F : : . 246 

Clement and the apostolic canon of the New Testament—Clement and the 
ecclesiastical canon of faith—The tradition of the Apostles, through 
the presbyters—Apostolicity of the episcopate—Presbyters, deacons 
and laity—The bishop’s supremacy—The Church, a condition of sal- 
vation . ὃ Σ 1 ᾿ : : : : : 3 : . 247 

Unity and catholicity of the Church—Economy of Clement’s doctrine; 
philosophy, faith, gnosis—Faith rests on authority and on tradition — 
Heresies are many, various, new—Clement does not depart from the 
common tradition ᾿ : F : ες : : : : . 254 


CHAPTER VI. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS. 


Tradition in Tertullian 5 ὃ Ἶ F : : 3 F 8 . 264 
I. The treatise on prescription—Animosity against philosophy—The rule of 
faith—It is justified by tradition—Tradition is apostolic—Heresies are 
subsequent to the Apostles—The praescriptio longi temporis—Ter- 
tullian’s argument, properly speaking, an argument of discussion, not 
of prescription—Bearing of Tertullian’s discussion—Detailed features 
of Tertullian’s ecclesiology—The hierarchical Church : 2 . 264 
II. The evolution of Tertullian—Opposition between tradition and truth— 
The working of the Spirit in the Chureh—Revelation continued by the 
new prophecy—Rome condemns this principle—Tertullian’s revolt— 
His invective against the hierarchy and against Callistus—New and 
anarchical character of Tertullian’s paradox—Tertullian’s final iso- 
lation : ς Ν : : . 281 


CHAPTER VII. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY. 


Doctrine, in Origen. 3 3 ὅ ; Ἔ : ; : 3 
The Church, a close society—The Church, a society in which there is a 
hierarchy—The bishop’s supremacy—His eminent dignity—Duties of 
the clergy and their remissness—Origen’s error regarding the subordina- 
tion of the power of Orders to the holiness of the minister . A . 298 


295 


XXVill TABLE OF CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The ecclesiastical doctrine is apostolic tradition—Canon of Holy Scripture— 
Baptismal symbol—Living magisterium—Function of the doctores 
Ecclesiae—Heretics or heterodox condemned in the name of tradition 
—Refuted by the teaching of the doctores—Bishops, judges of doc- 
trine . ; : Ξ - ἢ : : 5 : 4 - - 

Why Origen says ‘the Churches” rather than “the Church ”—Analogy 
between the Church and the city—Visible unity of all the Churches— 


319 


Origen and St. Peter’s primacy—The Roman primacy . 322 
Shortcomings of Origen’s ecclesiology : . 329 
CHAPTER VIII. 

ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME. 
332 


Tradition in St. Cyprian . : : : : : ὃ 4 ὃ 
I. Ecclesiastical organization in Cyprian’s time—The plebs and the ordo— 
The bishop, successor of the Apostles; his election and supreme power 
—Office of priests and deacons—Lectorate and minor orders—Main- 
tenance of the clergy—Share of the plebs in the government of the 
Church—The Church, a social community—Excommunication of the 


disobedient and of sinners—Provincial councils—Had Carthage the © 


primacy in Africa?—Relations between the Churches of the whole 
world—Unity of the whole episcopate—Is the hierarchical conception 
of the Church peculiar to Cyprian? . ς ὃ Ξ 3 5 

II. No reconciliation of the lapsi, without the bishop—The bishop, the 
foundation of his Church—Outside the Church, no reconciliation, no 
sacrifice, no priesthood—Revolt of Felicissimus at Carthage, and of 
Novatian at Rome—The Council of Carthage (May, 251) condemns 
Felicissimus—Cyprian writes the “De Unitate ecclesiae,” against 
Novatian and the Roman schism—Analysis of the treatise—The 
Church, a condition for the validity of the sacramental powers—The 
promise made by Christ to St. Peter—Imperfection of Cyprian’s 
ecclesiology : : - : ὃ : : ὦ Ε 

The two editions of the “De Unitate ecclesiae”’ ; : : Relns are 

III. Felicissimus appeals to Rome—Cyprian’s protest—Claim of the Council 


333 


350 


of Africa to supreme power in Africa-—The case of the Spanish bishops © 


—The subordination of the power of Orders to the holiness of the 
minister—The case of Marcianus of Arles—Cyprian’s unexpected re- 
course to Rome—Gallicanism and Donatism in germ, in the doctrine 
of the Africans 3 : : 5 : : ὁ : 5 ὃ 

IV. The baptismal controversy—Cyprian’s position: outside the Church, no 
baptism, because outside the Church, no Holy Ghost—Similar decision 
of the Counci! of Carthage of 255 and 256—Rome declares against 
Carthage—Pope Stephen’s letter: reassertion of the Roman primacy, 
and of the validity ex opere operato of baptism—Protest of the Council 
of Carthage, in September 256—Rome lays the subject before the Ca- 
tholic world—Firmilian unites with Cyprian against Pope Stephen— 
Firmilian’s ecclesiology—Death of Cyprian and of Stephen—Principles 
raised by the baptismal controversy—Cyprian’s contradictions: tra- 
ditional character of Rome : : 4 : : 

General conclusions 


373 


. 381 
. 403 


CHAPTER I. 
THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM. 
I. 


PRIMITIVE Catholicism first impresses the historian as a dis- 
persion of local churches, united by the identity of their 
faith and the solidarity, spiritual and social, which binds them 
all together. Considered under this aspect, it has consider- 
able resemblance to that Judaism from which it detached 
itself in the course of the first century. The latter has even 
been looked upon as a sort of pre-existing Church, for critics 
who are averse to recognizing any ecclesiastical elements in 
the Christianity of the Apostolic Age, willingly speak of the 
« Jewish Church”. It is one of the themes of Bousset’s 
brilliant book on the religion of Judaism in New Testament 
times.! Bousset has, it seems, already somewhat modified 
his views on the subject.2,. But whether or not the Judaism 
which was contemporaneous with the Gospel was a rough 
draft of the Church realized in Christianity, it is not 
without interest to compare the two. The study of those 
features in which they are alike, as well as those in which 
they differ, will conduce toa better understanding of the 


peculiar and original character of the new Dispersion. 
τὰ τιν 


The geographical expansion of Judaism has been brought 
into full light by recent critical studies. Palestine was now 
entirely judaized though this had been brought about only 
in the period of the Hasmonean restoration, when Idumea, 
Persea, and Galilee were annexed to Judea. But long be- 


1W. Bousset, “ Die Religion des Judentums in Neutestamentlichen 
Zeitalter”’ (Berlin, 1903). 
2 In the second edition of his book (Berlin, 1906). See the Preface, 


Pp. vii. 
1 


2 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


fore the Hasmonwan rule, the Jews had found their way 
into every part of the Hellenic world. 

This spread of Judaism in the Greek cities began at 
the time of Alexander, and reached its climax in the age of 
Julius Cesar and of Augustus: the time of Herod’s rule was 
its Golden Age. There were jewries in all the Roman pro- 
vinces washed by the Mediterranean and by the Black Sea ; 
some could be found m Mesopotamia, Arabia, Babylonia, 
Media, so that, towards the year 140 B.c., a Jewish poet 
could write of his race this emphatic, but truthful verse: 
‘< Bvery land and every sea is filled with thee!” : 

More than once scholars have drawn up statistics of this 
Jewish expansion by noting carefully the traces of the then 
existing jewries of the Dispersion, as revealed both by the 
texts of written works and by those of inscriptions.” A 
study of these statistics shows that the expansion of J udaism 
does not exactly coincide with the earliest expansion of 
Christianity. The centres are, indeed, the same for both: 
Antioch, Damascus, Smyrna, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Athens, 
Corinth, Alexandria, Rome; and how could it be otherwise ? 
But there were regions where Judaism was already established 
—at Palmyra, Nisibis, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, on the shores of 
the Black Sea, in the interior and in the southern part of 
Egypt, and in Roman Africa—but where Christianity did 
not at first find a home. : 

A second point to be borne in mind is the numerical 
importance of the jewries of the Dispersion, especially in 
Syria and in Egypt, in the provinces of Asia Minor, and in 
Rome. It has been calculated that in the time of Philo the 
Jews made up a seventh of the whole population of Hgypt; 
this writer estimates at one million the number of the Jews 
then dwelling in Egypt. During the reign of Tiberius, 
under pretext of forcing them into military service, some 


1*Orac. Sibyll.” mm. 271: Πᾶσα δὲ γαῖα σέθεν πλήρης καὶ πᾶσα 
θάλασσα. Kautzsch, ‘‘ Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des A. T.” 
Tom. ii. (Tiibingen, 1900), p. 190. Cf. Pére Lacranes, ‘‘ Le Messian- 
isme chez les Juifs”’ (Paris, 1909), pp. 273-84. 

2K. Scuirer, “Geschichte des jiidischen Volkes,” vol. 111.° pp. 2-70. 
See too, art. ‘‘ Diaspora” in the extra volume of Hastinas’ ‘‘ Dictionary 
of the Bible”. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission und Ausbreitung des Christen- 
tums,” second edition (1906), vol. 1. pp. 1-16. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 3 


4000 Jews were banished from Rome to Sardinia: a fact 
from which we may conclude that the Jewish colony of 
Rome counted at least 10,000 men, besides the women and 
the children. According to Harnack’s calculations, the Jews 
formed above 7 per cent of the whole population of the 
Roman Empire under Augustus. This numerical considera- 
tion, conjectural though it 15, might account for the rapid 
expansion of Christianity in the Empire, if Christianity 
had spread easily and exclusively in the jewries. But it 
is beyond dispute that, even as early as the year 64, the 
imperial legislation distinguished the Christians from the 
Jews; and this makes it clear that the Christians as a whole 
were no longer Jews by race, whilst it was on account of 
their race that the Jews formed a people apart. 

Indeed, a third well-ascertained historical fact is that 
the Jewish population could not be absorbed or assimilated 
by the nations in whose midst it settled and grew. Several 
centuries before, Aman had said to Assuerus: ‘‘ There is a 
single people scattered and living apart from the other races 
in all the provinces of thy kingdom, and their laws differ 
from those of every race. And it is not expedient for the 
King to tolerate them.’’! The Jewish race was bound to a 
faith the rigorous prescriptions of which tended to isolate it: 
it forbade all part in idolatrous worship, ‘‘ gens contwmelia 
numinum imsignis,’ in the words of Pliny;? it forbade 
mixed marriages; it forbade Jews to frequent theatres, 
circuses, gymnasia, baths, to sit down at the same table 
as a Pagan, to enter military service, or to take charge 
of public affairs. The Jews enjoyed many important legal 
privileges pertaining to the free exercise of their religion: 
they could meet in their synagogues, they could have their 
own judges who would pronounce according to their Law ; 
they could keep the Sabbath and practise circumcision ;? 
but all these privileges made their isolation the greater. 
Finally, Antisemitism, which was even then abroad, and dis- 
played itself in sarcasms, often in massacres or proscriptions, 


1K sther ut. 8. 2¢¢ Hist. Nat.” xu. 4, 46. 
5On the legal status of Judaism, see Scuirer, vol. m1. pp. 56-78. 
‘Cf. V. Cuapor, ‘‘ La province romaine proconsulaire d’ Asie” (Paris, 1904), 
pp. 182-6. 
1. 


4 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


set the seal on their exclusion. From whatever point of 
view they may be considered, the Jews, by reason of their 
race, formed a city within the city. ‘“‘The Jews,” says 
Strabo, “‘have places assigned them in Egypt, wherein they 
dwell apart; the quarter specially allotted to this nation at 
Alexandria is a large part of the city. There is also 
an ethnarch allowed them, who governs the nation, admin- 
isters justice for them, supervises their contracts, and sees 
to the observance of their laws, just as if he were the 
ruler of an independent city.”! The title ethnos or laos, 
the Jews actually claim in some inscriptions as the official 
name of their communities of Smyrna, and of Hierapolis, 
for instance.” 

This thorough penetration of the race by its faith is 
a phenomenon of which Bousset does not seem to realize 
the full importance. In his eyes, the facts which char- 
acterize the transformation of Judaism into the Church are 
these: first, the dissociation of religion from the national 
life; next, the fact that this dissociation does not result in 
the establishment of pure individualism, but in the rise 
of community forms which are religious without being 
national; thirdly, the fact that these community forms over- 
flow the boundaries of the nation. “It is only when these 
three symptoms manifest themselves that we can rightly 
speak of a tendency towards the formation of a Church.” 3 

There seems to be in this statement some confusion be- 
tween autonomy and national life. Under the Hasmonean 
rule, the Jews enjoyed a kind of autonomy, which consisted 
in their being governed by princes of their own blood and 
faith ; for them, these were the conditions of political legi- 
timacy. But their national life was not bound up with these 
conditions; for according to the remark of the historian 


1 Srraso, quoted by JosepHus, ‘‘ Antiq.,” x1v. 7.2. ΤῊ. Rermacs, 
** Textes d’auteurs grecs et romains relatifs au judaisme ” (Paris, 1895), 
p: 92. Notice, in the ‘‘ Papyrus of Alexandria,” published by BRUNET DE 
Prestes, how the Jews of Alexandria complain before a Roman emperor 
(Commodus ? 181 ?) that their ‘‘king” had been ill-treated. This king 
of the Jews is a mere ethnarch. Rernacu, p. 226. 

5 ScHURER, vol. 111.4 pp. 14 and 17. 

*Bousset, ‘Religion des Judentums (1903),” p. 55. Harnack’s 
“* Dogmengeschichte,” vol. 1.4 (1897), pp. 53-56. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 5 


Josephus,' the special characteristic of the Jewish people 
lay in the fact that its national constitution was neither 
monarchical nor oligarchical nor democratic, but theocratic. 
We must add, that this theocracy was not of necessity ex- 
ercised by a prince, nor by an established and traditional 
body of priests; the Law alone was supreme; it alone ex- 
ercised and expressed God’s sovereignty ; and since, leaving 
aside the case of individual defections, nothing whatever 
could part the Jews from the Law of God which ruled in its 
least detail their private, social, and religious life, it follows 
that there was for the Jews no possibility of separating their 
religion from their national life, to whatever corner of the 
world this hfe might immigrate.” 

That the Jews emigrated so easily, and that, when once 
they had emigrated, they settled down and multiplied so fast 
without ever becoming absorbed by the surrounding popula- 
tion, is to be explained by the fact that, turning their back on 
any claim to political existence, they found everywhere what 
they sought—the possibility of living their own national life, 
i.e. a life in keeping with the institutions given by God to 
His people. 

Unlike the Greeks, the Jews were, as a nation, the least 
liable to individualism. The more their religion isolated 
them from the nations in whose midst they dwelt, the 
more did it join them together among themselves: ‘ Quia 
apud vpsos fides obstinata,”’ Tacitus writes, ‘ misericordia 
in promptu, sed adversus omnes alios hostile odiwm.” * 
Everywhere treated with contempt, or threatened, they met 
together in separate quarters, so as more effectively to de- 
fend themselves and to help one another. They had their 
own synagogues where they met on the Sabbath. They had 
their own cemeteries where they were buried side by side. 

In this way corporate institutions unforeseen by the Law 
forced themselves upon the Jews. Rightly do scholars 


'“ Contra Apion.” τι. 164-5 ; Boussez, p. 71. 

* As to the supremacy of the Law, see ScHirer, vol. 1.3 pp. 305-12. 

3 Tacrr. ‘‘ Histor.” v. 5. Compare the text of Philostratus in the Life 
of Apollonius of Tyana, v. 33 (Rernacu, p. 176), and that of Quintilian, 
** Instit. Orat.,” ur. 7 (Remvacn, p. 284). The same thought is found in St. 
Paul, 1 Thess. τὶ, 15. 


0 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


speak in this connexion of the synagogue service—any syna- 
gogue was also called ‘a prayer” (mpocevyn),—® service 
made up of prayer and teaching, a comparatively late institu- 
tion, since it dated only from the second century B.C., and 
yet an institution necessary for the existence of jewries both 
in Palestine and among the Dispersion. Every synagogue 
was ruled by a president (ἀρχισυνάγωγος), whose duty it was to 
preside over the prayer, reading, and ministry of preaching : 
a presidency which did not imply any priestly dignity. The 
ruler of the synagogue was assisted by a servant, called hazan, 
whose help was merely material. The ruler had charge 
only of the religious services and was not the leader of the 
jewry. In every jewry there were two kinds of existence, 
the one religious, the other social: they interpenetrated each 
other to such an extent that the term synagogue had actu- 
ally become synonymous with that of nation (ἔθνος, κατοικία). 
Hence in every synagogue there was a deliberative assembly 
of the ancients (πρεσβύτεροι). These were men of note to 
whom authority had been entrusted by the community itself : 
they formed a board of temporal administration and of 
judicature; they were the archons of the jewry (ἄρχοντες, 
γέροντες). In large cities like Rome (Alexandria apparently 
had a very exceptional organization) there were many syna- 
gogues; and each formed a distinct jewry, with its own 
presbyteral board, its own chief presbyter, its own archons.' 
These institutions were fashioned after the model of the 
communal institutions of the Greek cities. Taken together, 
synagogue and presbyteral board were inseparable institu- 
tions, at once religious and national, that had grown out of 
the special conditions in which Jewish life was placed in the 
Dispersion. 
* * 
* 

Ever since it had spread in the midst of Hellenic civiliza- 
tion, and especially in Alexandria, Judaism had been con- 
strained to present itself as a “" wisdom” (σοφία), so as to 
be able to defend itself and to find a place for itself. The 
Jewish wisdom could claim to be more ancient than any 
other wisdom. ‘The synchronisms of Greek and Jewish 


‘Scntrer, vol, m1.° pp. 44-51. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM a 


history laid the first foundations of universal history, and in 
this universal history everything contributed to set forth 
the wonderful antiquity of the Jewish people and its part in 
the rise of civilization. The contradictions of Greek philo- 
sophy and the absurdities of Greek paganism furnished the 
advantage of a striking contrast to the unity, purity and 
solidity of the Jewish faith, which, considered in its essential 
contents—its monotheism and its ethics—could claim to be 
the primitive and normal wisdom of mankind. In the eyes 
of unbiassed Greeks, the Jews were a «race of philosophers ”’.! 
For three centuries, a school of Jewish thinkers—most unlike 
the Pharisees of Jerusalem—devoted the best efforts of their 
minds to this hellenization, to this universalizing of Judaism.” 
The Hebrew Bible, which until then had been a closed and 
inaccessible book for the Greeks, was translated into Greek 
during the third century. This was indeed a great novelty, 
which was held in the utmost abhorrence by the fanatic 
Zealots, nor did the version succeed in obtaining their ap- 
proval even when it was supported by the legend of the 
Pseudo-Aristeas. But on the other hand, what a wonderful 
source of new ideas it proved for the Greeks! The Hellen- 
izing Jewish exegetes rivalled one another in exploiting it by 
interpreting it. During the second century, Aristobulus, one 
of the Alexandrian commentators and philosophers, gave cur- 
rency to the idea that the leading masters of Greek philosophy, 
Heraclitus, Pythagoras and others, were merely the disciples 
of Moses: a suggestion which was destined to appeal rather 
too much to Clement of Alexandria. This was, according 
to Bousset, the fundamental dogma of Judaism thus hellenized : 
and to confirm it, Jewish scholars attributed to Orpheus, 
Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aischylus, Sophocles, Euripides 

. many apocryphal or adulterated texts, in which these 
poets were made to agree with Moses, for the greater glory 
of Judaism. Allegorism, applied to the Biblical narratives, 


1 Reracn, p. 8, text of ‘‘ Porphyry” quoting TurorHrastus (3rd 
cent. B.c.); p. 40, text of Hermippos of Smyrna (same cent.). Cf. 
Varro, quoted by St. Augustine, ‘‘ De Civ. Dei,” tv. 51 (ReErnacu, p. 
242). OricEn, ‘‘ Contra Celsum,” tv. 51. 

2 Scutrer, vol. m.° pp. 304 and ff. P. Wenpianp, ‘‘ Die helleni- 
stich-rémische Kultur” (Tibingen, 1907), pp. 109 and foll. 


8 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


completed this work of hellenization. Those interpreters 
who still clung to the literal sense were “Ὃμικροπολῖται᾽" 
(‘citizens of small countries”), small countries being much 
given to myth-making: the allegorizing Jews, on the con- 
trary, like the Stoics, were “citizens of the world”. “One 
word sums up Philo’s purpose, when he uses the allegorical 
method: the universalization of the Jewish Law.”* And 
Philo, who is a contemporary of Jesus, Philo who is an en- 
cyclopeedist, represents this new Judaism at its best. 

There was in Judaism another, deeper tendency: the 
tendency more and more to minimize the part of worship. 
It would be a mistake to look upon this as a result of hel- 
lenization. It is beyond question that the worship mono- 
polized by the Temple, became every day less and less 
attractive, in proportion as the religious service conducted in 
the synagogues became the true aliment of Jewish piety. 
However, with this phenomenon hellenization had nothing 
to do, for piety without altars was against the tendency of 
the Greek mind: it had arisen out of the historical con- 
ditions in which the Jews had been placed at the time when 
the Temple was in ruins, out of the fact of the Dispersion 
itself, and also from the very ancient and most religious 
sentiment that mercy is better than sacrifice. Nor was the 
unpopularity of the priests of Jerusalem a consequence of 
hellenization—but the reaction of Pharisaism with its politi- 
cal and doctrinal grievances against the Sadducees, who had 
then full control of the Priesthood. On the other hand, 
whilst the Temple and the Priesthood gradually lost their in- 
fluence and eventually disappeared—a disappearance which 
did not at all shake the faith of Judaism—the personal 
duties imposed by the Law, such as circumcision, kept 
all their hold, nor were they affected in any way by helleni- 
zation, even though the latter tried to discover an allegorical 
meaning for them.? In this way hellenization shows what 
it truly was, a philosophy of religion within religion itself. 

Pharisaic Judaism claimed to be in possession of the 
key of knowledge and of the chair of Moses: it rested its 


‘HK. Briurer, ‘‘ Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon 
d’Alexandrie”’ (Paris, 1908), p. 65. 
* BousszEt, p. 110. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 9 


claim on a tradition, which, by means of a continuous suc- 
cession, was traced back to Moses himself, through Josue, 
the Ancients, the Prophets, the Great Synagogue and its 
latest representatives, among whom Simon the Just, his dis- 
ciple Antigonus of Socho, and later on Hillel and Shammai, 
were to be numbered. This was the essence of Rabbinism : 
it stood by a tradition untouched by speculation or criticism 
or increment, and hence without life, and yet not without 
an imposing and respectable authority, which no Jew ever 
dreamt of disobeying, so severely might the disobedient be 
dealt with 11 

Helienized Judaism had none of these features; and, 
even though it had also a theology, theologians, and a theo- 
logical literature, yet that theology had not the authoritative 
character of the Palestinian theology; on the contrary it 
was a kind of private concern, and, in this respect, did not 
differ from popular Greek philosophy: it was something 
spontaneous, brought about by the need of defining the 
Jewish position in presence of Hellenism; it was an argu- 
mentative defence of that position, and the apologists had 
become the intellectual leaders of the Dispersion, even though 
they had been invested with no other authority than that 
conferred on them by the confidence of general opinion. As 
regards authority, Aristobulus and Philo cannot be compared 
with Hillel and Shammai, still less with Melito and St. 
Ireneus: we can compare them at most with St. Justin, 
who was a philosopher and a layman. 

We may then rightly conclude that hellenization was an 
intellectual current in Judaism, caused by Hellenic civiliza- 
tion, but that this current did not amount to a schism apart 
from the national and religious life of the Jews of the 
Dispersion. 

Lie 


1See the prayer against heretics, the Birkath ha-Minim, in the 
Shmone EHsre, i.e. the daily prayer of the pious Jews, of which the re- 
daction may date from the year 80-100. ScuHitrer, vol. 11.4 p. 961. 
Lagrange, ‘‘ Messianisme,” p. 294, and Hénnicke, ‘“‘ Das Judenchristen- 
tum ”’ (Berlin, 1908), p. 381. Regarding the ‘‘ dogma of tradition,” as it 
is called by Bousset, see Bousser, pp. 133-6, and LaGranas, pp. 137-47. 
On the heretics of the Synagogue, FrrepLanper, ‘‘ Synagoge und Kirche 
in ihren Anfiingen” (Berlin, 1908), pp. 64-78. 


10 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


There still remains proselytism: does it not represent 
a peculiar Jewish status distinct from Jewish national life? 

At the most prosperous period of the Dispersion, the 
proselytes, 1.6. the Gentiles who embraced the Jewish 
faith, constituted in every jewry an important element. 
For the Jew had but to read the Prophets, to perceive 
that in his Law he could find the hght that was to 
enlighten the Gentile world. Conscious as he was of the 
superiority of his Law, he looked upon the conversion of 
a Greek to Judaism as a recognition of this superiority. 
Hence both Pharisees and Hellenists rivalled each other 
in propagandism. ‘Thou who art called a Jew and restest 
in the Law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest His 
will, and approvest the more profitable things, being in- 
structed by the Law; thou who art confident that thou 
thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in 
darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, 
having the form of knowledge and of truth in the Law; thou 
therefore that teachest another, teachest not thyself! .. . 
Thou that abhorrest idols committest sacrilege! Thou that 
makest thy boast of the Law, by transgression of the Law 
dishonourest God!”! Although less than the number of 
those who had been initiated into the worship of Isis or of 
Mithra, the number of proselytes was very great. These 
proselytes, it is true, constituted a more or less fluctuating 
and uncertain category: for, as we know from Josephus 
himself, many did not persevere. Nevertheless, there were 
proselytes in every synagogue. When St. Paul at Antioch 
of Pisidia calls his hearers: ‘Children of the stock of 
Abraham, and whosoever among you fear God,” let us bear 
in mind that these φοβούμενοι τὸν θεόν are proselytes. 
The author of the Acts also gives them the synonymous 
title of σεβόμενοι [τὸν θεόν], which is found quite often in the 
inscriptions.* 


1Rom. τι. 17-23. 

* Acts x11. 16, 26, 43, 50. See also Acts x. 2, 22, xvr. 14, xvi. 4, 17, 
xvii. 7. Cf. A. Detssmann, ‘‘ Licht vom Osten ” (Tiibingen, 1908), p. 326. 

*Scutrer, vol. mi. pp. 115,124. See also J. Livi, “Le prosélyt- 
isme juif” in the “Revue des études juives,” vol. τι. (1905) and vol. 
LI. (1906). : 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 1 


These pagans converted to the fear of Yahweh were 
not indeed proselytes in the rabbinical sense of the term. 
The latter, few in number it is believed, were those who 
had submitted to circumcision and strictly kept the Law. 
They were in fact incorporated into the Jewish people. 
‘Yea, I testify to every man that receiveth circumcision 
that he is a debtor to do the whole Law,” St. Paul says to 
the Galatians. These converts who have been circumcised 
and who live up to their faith, are the “‘ proselytes of right- 
eousness,” the only genuine proselytes, the only ones who 
are admitted ‘‘under the wings of the Shechina!” ? 

To be incorporated into the people of Israel, such prose- 
lytes had to submit to circumcision, to offer sacrifice in the 
Temple, and to pass through a kind of baptism. It goes 
without saying that circumcision was only for men, and that 
the obligation to sacrifice ceased altogether, after the ruin of 
the Temple. But what was this baptism Ὁ ὃ 

We must confess that the texts in which it is mentioned 
enter into few details and are not always very reliable. See- 
berg brings forward a description of the proselyte’s initiation 
taken from the treatise Jebamoth of the Talmud which dates, 
at the earliest, from the third century of our era. He cites 
also another description taken from the treatise Gervm, and 
dating from the second half of the second century. These 
two descriptions agree: in both the candidate has to answer 
some questions regarding the status and condition of the 
Jews, which he is about to embrace; after his answers, he is 


‘Gal. v. 3. Scutrer, vol. mr. pp. 127-8 opposes the view which 
identifies the σεβόμενοι with the ‘‘ proselytes of the gate”. The ‘‘ prose- 
lytes of the gate” are the pagans who dwell within the confines of Israel 
and who must observe those precepts of the Law which regard the Gentile 
world. Then, too, the expression “ proselytes of the gate’’ is comparatively 
recent: it is not found in the Rabbinical literature before the thirteenth 
century. 

* B. Meinertz, “‘ Jesus und die Heidenmission”’ (Miinster, 1908), pp. 
42, 45. 

5 Regarding the baptism administered by John the Baptist, Origen 
writes : “Christus a Ioanne baptizatus refertur, non eo baptismate quod 
in Christo est, sed eo quod in lege est” (“Comment in Rom.” vy. 8). 
The ablutions performed by the Jews were also called “baptisms”. Cf. 
Luke, x1. 38, and Grenrety-Honz, “ Fragment of an Uncanonical Gospel ”’ 
(Oxford, 1908), pp. 15-17. 


12 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


circumcised, then immediately passes through a bath, which 
is styled by the treatise Gerim ‘‘a bath of levitical cleansing,” 
or “ἃ bath of cleansing”. In the treatise Jebamoth, there 
are recorded the answers of R. Eliezer and of R. Josua, two 
rabbis who lived about the year A.D. 100. ‘The former says: 
((Α proselyte, who is circumcised but not baptized, is already 
a proselyte, for we know regarding our fathers, that they 
were circumcised, but not that they were baptized.” The 
latter says: ‘‘ Whoever is baptized, but not circumcised, is 
already a proselyte, for we know regarding our mothers, 
that they were baptized, but not circumcised.” The wise 
men conclude: “‘ Any one who is baptized, but not circum- 
cised, and any one who is circumcised, but not baptized, is 
not a proselyte, solong as he is not circumcised and bap- 
tized”. 

Those sayings of R. Eliezer and of R. Josua seem to 
imply that this ‘‘ baptism ”’ was not a very ancient institu- 
tion, since R. Eliezer alleges that his ‘‘ fathers” were only 
circumcised. The solution given by the “‘ wise men” is a 
conciliatory solution, a compromise between the practice of 
baptism and the rejection of baptism. Would it not seem that 
the dispute about the necessity of baptism took place at the 
time of R. Eliezer and of R. Josua, i.e. toward the year 100 ? 
A fact of capital importance in this connexion is the silence 
of Philo and of Josephus:? from it we may conclude that 
baptism had not in their times the importance which it ac- 
quired later on owing perhaps to the rivalry of Christianity 
and of Mithraism. 


1A. Szesere, “Das Evangelium Christi’ (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 98-101. 
W. Brandt, ‘‘ Die jiidischen Baptismen”’ (Giessen, 1910), pp. 57-62 and 
Scutrer, vol. mr. p. 129 and ff. 

* A text of Arrian (about 150), “ Dissert. Epicteti,’ τι. 9, is quoted 
(Reinacu, p. 155): ὅταν δ᾽ ἀναλάβῃ τὸ πάθος τὸ τοῦ βεβαμμένου καὶ ἡρημένου, 
TOTE καὶ ἔστι τῷ ιὄντι καὶ καλεῖται Ἰουδαῖος. “ But if any one adopts the 
mode of life required of one who has been baptized and elected, then is 
he really a Jew and entitled to be called such.” Rerxtyacn remarks that 
the exact meaning of this phrase is disputed ; and he is inclined to think 
that in it there is a confusion between the Jews and the Christians. 
A verse of the ‘‘ Oracula Sibyllina,” (1v. 165) is also quoted as referring to 
the Jewish baptism ; but it is rather vague. Still more so is the allusion 
of the Kpistle of Barnabas (x1.1). Of. Laaranas, “ Messianisme,” p. 281. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 13 


In reality, a pagan became a Jew only through circum- 
cision.! But baptism was also necessary. He who received 
circumcision was still legally impure, until he was baptized, 
even were he born of Jewish parents. ‘This resulted from 
his having been uncircumcised. There is a rabbinical 
answer? to the following case: supposing a Gentile is cir- 
cumcised on the eve of the Passover, may he eat the Pasch 
on the morrow? Yes, the school of Shammai answers: he 
takes the bath and he eats the Pasch. No, the school of 
Hillel replies, for whoever has just come forth from the 
state of incir¢umcision is like one who comes forth from the 
grave: which means that he is unclean for seven days 
(Num. xtx. 16). In the eyes of a Jew, a pagan was un- 
clean: therefore, before circumcision could incorporate him 
into God’s people, he must needs be purified by means of an 
ablution. 

Since, then, these proselytes, now become Jews, and Jews 
most faithful to the religious practices of Judaism, these 
proselytes of righteousness, are incorporated into the Jewish 
people and are no longer distinct from it, we cannot say 
that they form a church: as yet we have only a people. 


* * 
Ἂχ 


Shall we find an incipient church in the group of those 
who are proselytes in the broader sense of the word, i.e. 
those who are not circumcised, and who do not practise the 
Law in all its strictness ? 

Here, Jewish propagandism found a powerful help in 
hellenization, which set forth Judaism as the most ancient 
of all systems of wisdom, cared but little for worship and 
ritual, and professed what was essential in the Jewish faith— 
monotheism and moral righteousness. In this the religious- 
minded Greek found a justification of his own revolts against 
mythology and polytheism: ‘‘Zudaei mente sola unumque 
numen intellegunt. ... Igitur nulla simulacra urbibus 
suis nedum templis sistunt: non regibus haec adulatio, non 
Caesaribus honor.”* Considered merely in these essential 


1 Cf. Petronius (a contemporary of Nero), quoted by REmnacu, p. 266. 
2 ScHUReER, vol. 11. p. 131, note 86. 
3 Tacit. ‘ Hist.” v. 5. 


14 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


teachings, Judaism gave more than philosophy, for while it 
was philosophical it did not cease to be a religion. It had 
the attractiveness of a negation although it remained a 
positive faith. Judaism has been compared by some to the 
oriental worships, those of Isis, of Sabazios, and of Mithra, 
for instance, which recruited so many followers in the Greek 
and Roman world; but the comparison is hardly appropriate : 
it would be much nearer to the truth, to say that Judaism 
was a reaction against these licentious and mythological 
worships, against these worships replete with pompous cere- 
monies and displays that appealed to the senses. As con- 
ceived and propounded by its hellenizing apologists, Judaism 
was far more lke Stoicism, but a Stoicism imbued with the 
idea of God and bound to certain observances without which 
there can be no external religion. 

According to the historian Josephus, the Sabbath-rest 
was everywhere observed by some, both in Greek cities and 
among the barbarians: this he says was also the case with 
fasting and precepts regarding food.1 This penetration of 
heathen environments by Jewish customs, is described in 
the passage of Seneca quoted by St. Augustine: « Cum in- 
terim usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo convaluit, 
ut per omnes iam terras recepta sit, υἱοί victoribus leges 
dederunt. Ili tamen causas ritus sui noverunt : maior 
pars populi facit quod cur facrat agnorat. ffi 

From this it may be inferred that, in the eyes both ‘ot 
Josephus and of Seneca, it is a question of a mere “‘infiltra- 
tion” of the Jewish customs into Greek, barbarian, or 
Roman surroundings. On the other hand, what we are in- 
quiring after is a real adhesion to Judaism as characterizing 
this broader species of proselytism. 

One case of this kind we find in Juvenal: the case of a 
Roman who keeps the Sabbath and abstains from pork: this 
Roman is a φοβούμενος τὸν θεόν: he is called metwens by 
Juvenal. The son of this metwens embraces Judaism. He 
has himself circumcised, he gives up Roman ways altogether, 


'**Contra Apion.” τι. p. 282. Cf. the texts of Tibullus and Ovid, 
quoted by Rrtacu, pp. 247-9, FrrepLanver, pp. 34-5, LAGRANGE, p. 276. 

5 Seneca, apud AucustinE, ‘ De Civ. Dei,” νι. 11 (Remnacu, p. 262). 
Cf. Tertuuiian, ‘* Ad Nation.” 1. 13. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 15 


and knows no other law than that of the Jews: he hates 
any one who is not a Jew. 

Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti ! 

This son is a true proselyte of righteousness, duly incorpo- 
rated into the Jewish people, whereas his father was a Jew but 
vaguely.1 A similar contrast can be seen in the history of 
the conversion of the king of Adiabene, Izatis.2 At the 
preaching of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, Izatis be- 
comes converted to the Jewish faith and wishes to be cir- 
cumcised. But Ananias tells him that to observe God’s 
commandments is more important than to be circumcised, 
and that even without that ceremony one can be a good 
Jew. Some time later, a Galilean Jew, named Eleazar, 
finding the king reading the Pentateuch, shows him, by texts, 
that he cannot observe the Law unless he be circumcised. 
Izatis yields to Eleazar’s persuasions and is circumcised. 
At Cesarea, we find Cornelius, a centurion of the cohort 
Italica, who is not a Jew, since he is engaged in the military 
service. However, he is “‘a religious man and fearing God” 
(εὐσεβὴς καὶ φοβούμενος Tov θεόν), With all his house, giving 
much alms to the people, and always praying to God. He is 
a just man, and “‘one that feareth God (δίκαιος καὶ φοβούμενος 
τὸν θεόν), and having good testimony from all the nation of 
the Jews at Cxsarea” (τοῦ ἔθνους τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων): when he 
is visited by the Apostle St. Peter, he invites to his house, 
‘“‘his kinsmen and special friends’’.? When Peter goes back 
to Jerusalem, some will upbraid him vehemently for having 
entered the house of one who does not belong to God’s 
people and is unclean: «Thou didst go into men uncircum- 
cised, and didst eat with them!’’* 

These are three striking and typical instances of proselyt- 
ism in the broad sense, as opposed to the proselytism of 
righteousness ; the person attached to Judaism in this sense 


' JuvenaL, ‘‘ Sat.” xvi. 96-106 (Remacn, pp. 292-3). LacGrancE, 
p. 278. 

2 JosepH. ‘‘ Antiq.” xx. 2, 4. Scntrer, vol. m. p. 119. La- 
GRANGE, p. 280. 

3 Acts x. 2, 22, 24. 

* Acts x1. 1,3. Compare Sugron. ‘‘ Domitian,” 12 (Reracu, p. 
333). 


16 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


is not circumcised and does not keep the Law in its rigour, 
but he professes monotheism and is pious, i.e. has nothing 
to do with heathenism, fulfils the moral precepts of the 
Law, and observes some of its prohibitions. Still, well as 
he may be disposed towards the Jews, and well as the Jews 
may be disposed towards him, he remains an unclean alien. 
This kind of interdict ceases only when he accepts circum- 
cision and the whole Law. 

Shall we look upon this floating contingent—which after 
all is not acknowledged by Judaism—as a spiritual society, as 
a church? This multitude, which so rouses our sympathy, 
was, in the eyes of authentic Judaism, alien and unclean. 
Shall we identify it with Judaism and call it a Jewish 
Church? ΠῸ do so would be a mere abuse of words. 


* ὩΣ 
* 


Hence, what is true is most probably this. Historical 
Judaism, that best typified by the Pharisees, was based on 
the idea of a People and on that of the Law: a man either 
was or was not a child of Abraham, either did or did not 
observe the Law of God, the whole Law. 

Hellenized Judaism had indeed the intuition of a re- 
ligious universalism: but it conceived it less as a reformed 
faith than as a defence of the traditional faith, an argu- 
ment that was meant to command the respect of the Greeks. 
As some one has fitly observed, hellenized Judaism defended 
its religion by means of Hellenism, whilst Pharisaism de- 
fended its religion against Hellenism. Hellenized Judaism 
did not broaden the idea of a People of God any more than 
it restricted the function of the Law; whilst proselytism 
was an application of that apologetical idea and like it 
ended in imposing circumcision. Any one who did not 
ultimately submit to the latter, was an ‘‘allophyhan,” an 
unclean person, because the People of God and its Law were 
supreme. 

Proselytism was destined to survive the ruin of Jerusalem 
only by a few years. The recollections of it that survived 
in the Talmudic tradition are not unlike the recollections 
which Conservatives preserve of those Liberal tendencies 
and movements which they had once feared would succeed. 
R. Helbo, a Palestinian rabbi of the third century, writes: 


~ 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 17 


‘‘Proselytes are as painful for Israel as is leprosy for the 
skin,’’! and Helbo’s view was not solitary. 

At the same time it cannot be doubted that these 
proselytes who were drawn to Judaism by its teaching about 
God and its ethical doctrine, formed a class well prepared— 
although they were not the only class so prepared—and 
disposed to esteem the Church: the Puritan exclusivism 
of Judaism contributed to make the Church the more desir- 
able, precisely because it was not itself a Church. 


i, 


Tacitus has gathered and summed up in a few lines the 
history of the beginnings of Christianity: “‘ ductor nominis 
eius Christus Tiberio imperitante per procwratorem Pon- 
tium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat ; repressaque in prae- 
sens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per 
Iudaeam originem eius mali, sed per Urbem etiam, quo 
cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebran- 
turque”’.2 Christus, after whom the Christians are called, 
was condemned to death, under Tiberius, by the procurator 
Pontius Pilate. Repressed then, this execrable superstition 
was again overflowing—about the year 64, under Nero—not 
only in Judea where it had arisen, but in Rome itself, 
where all forms of wickedness and infamy flow in and find 
adepts. 

We cannot take in its strict meaning this statement of 
Tacitus, who, because of his great artistic taste, is always to 
be suspect of artificial composition and presentation, In 
this particular instance, he describes the facts as though, from 
the death of Jesus to the burning of Rome in 64, Chris- 
tianity had passed through a protracted period in which it 
was apparently crushed, and then, a short while before the 
year 64, had suddenly begun to expand, not only in Judxa 
but even at Rome. That Christianity suddenly expanded, 
is not correct; what is correct is that, towards the year 64, 
Christianity appeared as distinct from Judaism. 

Roman legislation did not allow freedom of worship. 


1 Livi, vol. 11. pp. 1 and 5. LaGrange, p. 270. 
2Taciz. ‘‘ Annal.” xv. 44. 


18 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Tertullian mentions an ancient law, ‘‘ vetus decretum,” which 
forbade the Emperor to sanction the worship of any god, 
without the previous assent of the Senate:* he may allude 
to the law quoted by Cicero: “‘Separatum nemo habessit 
deos ; neve novos sive advenas, nisi publice adscitos privatem 
colunto”.2 Hence even domestic worship was subject to 
the interdiction. Still great was the practical tolerance 
shown, less prompted by irreligion than by the fear of 
angering unknown divinities by the ill-treatment of their 
followers. But Christianity could not expect that tolerance, 
precisely because the heathen looked upon the new religion 
as a kind of atheism.? The profession of Christianity was 
long an heroic risk as much as it was an act of faith, and 
we cannot properly understand the special character of the 
Christianity of the first three centuries unless we see in it 
an exhortation to martyrdom.* But, before the year 64, it 
spread under the shadow of the laws that protected Juda- 
ism, with which so far it had been confounded. 

As a proof of the primitive confusion of Judaism with 
Christianity, we may mention a fact related as follows by 
Suetonius in his ‘Vita Claudii”’: “Zudaeos impulsore 
Chresto adsidue tumultuantes Roma expulit”>® This state- 
ment of Suetonius is confirmed by the Acts of the Apostles 
(xvill. 2). On leaving Athens, St. Paul arrives at Corinth, 
and there he ‘‘finds a certain Jew named Aquila, a native 
of Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla, 
because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from 
Rome’, The expulsion of the Jews from Rome may have 
dated from the year 51 or 52. The assertion of Suetonius 
is obscure only as regards the mention of the instigator, 
named Chrestus. Some have proposed to take these words 


1TertuLL. “ Apolog.” 5. Cf. Acts xv. 21. 

2 Cicero, “De legib.” τι. 8. The religious policy of the Romans is 
strikingly expressed in a speech attributed to Mescenas when addressing 
Augustus, in Dion Cassius, “ Hist. roman.” tir. 36 (Dion wrote about 
the year 240). Cf. G. Botsster, “La religion romaine,” vol. 1. p. 
347. 

*“ Martyr. Polyecarpi,” 9: Christians are insulted with the cry, 
“¢ Away with the atheists!” 

*Harnack, “ Die Mission und Ausbreitung,”’ vol. 1. p. 404. 

*Sueton. ‘‘ Claud.” 25. ; 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 19 


literally, and have conjectured that some person of the 
name of Chrestus—a name which was quite common among 
slaves or freedmen—had perhaps raised a riot among the 
Jews, his co-religionists.! Others incline to believe that 
Suetonius mistook the name Chrestus for Christus—as a 
matter of fact, Tertullian charges the Romans with pro- 
nouncing wrongly Chrestianus.?, Some controversies prob- 
ably arose in the jewries of Rome, about “the author of 
the’’ Christian ‘‘ name,” controversies like those which, as 
we know from the book of the Acts, the introduction of 
Christianity caused in all the jewries.® 

If then, as is generally held, the Roman jewries were 
deeply disturbed by the introduction of Christianity, im- 
pulsore Chresto, the fact that Claudius re-established order, 
by banishing the Jews from Rome—and with them the 
Christians, like Aquila and Priscilla—proves that the Roman 
police had not as yet come to distinguish the Christians 
from the Jews or was unwilling to take cognizance of what 
distinguished them. Viewed in the same light, what oc- 
curred at Corinth at the same time or shortly after, is most 
significant. When St. Paul was dragged by the ruler of the 
synagogue and by the Jewish Zealots before the proconsul— 
Annaeus Novatus Gallio, the brother of Seneca—and was 
charged with being an apostate from the Law, the proconsul 
said: ‘‘Jews, these are questions about your own Law, 


1 Remacn, “Textes,” p. 329. True, Χρηστός is not an uncommon 
name in the Greek onomasticon. But, were this the name of some obscure 
personage, Suetonius would probably have written, “impulsore Chresto 
quodam,” or omitted it altogether. Cf. Philip. 1. 15-18: τὸν Χριστὸν 
κηρύσσουσιν. ... Χριστὸς καταγγέλλεται. The jeu de mots (χριστός--- χρηστός) 
is found again in St. Justin, ‘‘ Apol.” 41; in Theophilus, ‘‘ Ad Autolyc.” 
1.1: perhaps already in 1 Petr. 11. 2, 3. 

2 TeRTuULL. “ Apol.” 3: “. . . perperam Chrestianus pronuntiatur a 
vobis, nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes vos... .” In the text 
of Tacitus, “ quos vulgus christianos adpellabat,” a recent revision of the 
manuscript shows that we must read chrestianos (Harnack, “ Mission,” 
vol. 1. p. 348). Tacrrus meant to say that the common people said 
chrestiani, but the founder of the sect was called Christus. 

3 Acts xxv. 19. Εὔ8Εβ. “Ἢ. HK.” 1. 17. 1, records a legendary 
rumour according to which, in the time of Claudius, Philo, then in Rome, 
had an interview with St. Peter who was preaching the gospel to the 
Romans. 


Ω * 


20 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


look to them yourselves; I am not minded to be a judge in 
these matters’”’,? 

On the contrary, some ten years later, the separation of 
the Jews from the Christians had taken place; and this 
tends to show, on the one hand, that most of the recruits 
of Christianity were no longer of Jewish birth, and, on the 
other, that the Jews themselves had not only obtained the 
repeal of the edict of expulsion, enacted against them at 
Rome by Claudius, but had even profited by Nero’s favour 
to forestall any return of the confusion which had caused 
them so much trouble, How clear the distinction had be- 
come we may see from the events of the year 64. 

On July 19, a.p. 64, a fire broke out in the neighbour- 
hood of the Great Circus, at Rome: for six days and seven 
nights, it raged in the Velabrum, the Forum, and a part of 
the Palatine; then it started again at the other end of the 
city, and within the space of three days laid waste the 
Quirinal, the Viminal, and the Campus Martius. Out of 
the fourteen sections of the city, only four were spared, 
among them those (the Capena Gate and the Trastevere) 
where the Jewish element was predominant. In their in- 
tense excitement, the people accused Nero of setting fire 
to Rome in order to have an opportunity of remodelling the 
plan of the city. Anxious to put an end to these rumours, 
the Emperor ‘‘announced as the true culprits and visited 
with the most cruel punishments those who were called Chris- 
tians by the mob and are hated for their moral enormities”’? 

Even though they suffered least from the fire, the Jews 
were not suspected for an instant of having started it; but 
the accusation fell on the Christians:* they were, then, 
notoriously and personally distinct from the Jews. Some 
Christians were seized, and unhesitatingly confessed they 
were Christians; then, a very large multitude of the dis- 


1 Acts xvimt. 12-17. Cf. xxi. 29. In Acts xxiv. 5, the rhetorician 
Tertullos denounces to Felix the Apostle Paul as the leader of ‘‘the 
seditious sect of the Nazarenes”. For him Christianity is but a Jewish 
sect. 

?Tacrt. “ Annal.” xv. 44. 

*Harnack, “ Mission,” vol. 1. pp. 51, 400, surmises that Nero 
punished the Christian community at the instigation of the Jews. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 21 


ciples of Christ was gradually found: “Jgitur promum cor- 
repti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens, 
haud perinde in crimine incendit, quam odio humani 
generis coniuncti sunt”.! This name Christian is not un- 
known to the rabble: they are those ‘‘ quos per flagitia in- 
visos vulgus Chrestianos adpellabat”. Theirs is an odious 
name, associated with wicked and infamous deeds: the de- 
finite complaints made against it do not recall the popular 
grievances against the Jews. We no longer hear of a race 
which is hated and persecuted, and which can easily be re- 
cognized because of its peculiar customs and physiognomy ; 
but of a worship which is owned (fatebantur) or denounced 
(indicio). The Christians are an immense and defenceless 
multitude; while the Jews live apart, and their race is both 
a sign by which they can be recognized and a title to pro- 
tection. Tacitus, who wrote about the year 115, had for 
the chief source of his narrative of Nero’s reign, a history, 
now lost, of that reign, composed by Cluvius Rufus in the 
time of Galba and of Vespasian, 1.6. between the years 68 
and 79.2. The testimony of Tacitus receives a confirmation 
from the authority of its source. 

The same testimony is also confirmed by a passage 
that many believe to be taken from the lost fragment 
of the ‘ History” of Tacitus—which is found in the 
‘Chronicle’? of Sulpitius Severus. In a meeting held on 
August 9, 70, the eve of the burning of the Temple of Jeru- 
salem, Titus puts the question whether or not the Temple 
is to be destroyed: several of his officers agree with him in 
considering the destruction expedient, in order more com- 
pletely to do away with the religion both of the Jews and 
of the Christians: ‘Quo plenius ludaeorum et Christian- 
orum religio tolleretur: quippe has religiones, licet con- 
trarias sibi, visdem tamen ab auctoribus profectas: 
Christianos ea Iudaeis extitisse: radice sublata, sturpem 
facile perituram”.® Here we have another and still more 
explicit affirmation both of the Jewish origin of Christianity, 


1The current text is convicti. But (on the authority of the MS. 
“ Mediceus”’) the reading coniuncti is preferred. 

2p, Fanta, “ Les sources de Tacite” (Paris, 1893), p. 403. 

3Sunp. Sever. ‘‘ Chron.” παι. 80 (REINACH, p. 325). 


22 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


and of the distinction and opposition between the two re- 
ligions. 

We may go even further; this distinction was not only 
known to all; it was, we think, as early as the year 64 
sanctioned by law." 

ἈΝ ἵ 

Certain it is that, at the beginning of the second century, 
the profession of Christianity was forbidden by the Roman 
legislation, as is well known from the correspondence between 
Pliny the Younger and Trajan. Pliny was the imperial 
legate in the province of Bithynia and Pontus, from the 
autumn of the year 111 to the spring of the year 113. 
Scarcely had he arrived in his province, when he had to take 
cognizance of prosecutions against the Christians. Strangely 
enough, although he had been a lawyer, a pretor, and a 
consul, he does not seem to have as yet had occasion to 
meet, or to undertake, prosecutions of this kind. This fact 
goes to show that prosecutions of Christians are local and 
intermittent. At all events, in Bithynia and Pontus, they 
have started, and a great many persons are actually 
threatened. ‘‘For many of every age, of every rank, 
and of both sexes, are being summoned before the tri- 
bunals or will be in the future. The contagion of this 
superstition has indeed affected not only the cities, but 
the village and country districts.” Pliny has questioned the 
accused, and had two deaconesses put to the torture: he 
has found no crime whatever, «nothing but an evil, unre- 
strained superstition.” This superstition, which is com- 
bined with a great deal of probity, the legate feels much 
inclined not to punish, either because he regards it .as quite 
inoffensive, or because he thinks that it will be more 


1 Of. C. CALLEWAERT’s articles on the beginnings of the persecuting 
legislation in the ‘“‘ Revue dhist. eccl.’’? of Louvain, vol. τι. (1901) and 
vol. 111. (1902), in the ‘‘ Revue des questions historiques,” vol. LxxtIv. 
(1903) and vol. txxvi. (1904). The view by which Iabide, and which 
is the same as that of Callewaert, I have already defended in the ‘‘ Revue 
Biblique,” vol. 11. (1894), pp. 503-21. This is also the opinion of A. 
D’Atus, ‘‘ Théologie de Tertullien ” (Paris, 1905), pp. 381-8. A. Pieper, 
** Christentum, rdmisches Kaisertum und heidnisches Staat’’ (Miinster, 
1907). The opposite view (Mommsen, Le Blant, Boissier) is adopted by 
Harnack, art. ‘‘ Christenverfolgungen ” in Havor’s ‘‘ Realencyklopidie ”. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 23 


easily suppressed if severity is not used. What, then, we 
ask, obliges him to use severity if not some law forbidding 
to profess this superstition?! In short we must recognize 
here, the traces of a legislation which forbids Christianity : 
« . . . Those who have been brought before me as Chris- 
tians I asked whether they were Christians; a second and 
a third time, and with threats of punishment, I questioned 
those who confessed; I ordered those who were obstinate 
to be executed.” Hence, to own to be a Christian is to own 
to a capital crime: this Pliny goes on to state still more 
distinctly. 

He feels concerned about the rigorous character of the 
measure he has to apply. He does not know ‘‘ whether 
any allowance is to be made for age, or whether the treat- 
ment of the weaker should not differ from that of the 
stronger; whether pardon is to be granted in case of re- 
pentance, or whether he who has once been a Christian 
should gain nothing by having ceased to be one; whether 
the name itself without the proof of crimes, or the crimes 
inseparably connected with the name, are to be punished’’.” 


1 Puryy, “ Hpistul.” x. 96. The authenticity of the text is beyond 
dispute. Hanrwnack, ‘‘ Chronologie,” vol. 1, p. 256. 

2The Christians accused by Pliny allege in their defence that their 
misdemeanour or their mistake is a mere offence of unlawful association : 
‘* |, . quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque 
Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem, seque sacramento non in scelus 
aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, 
ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent : quibus peractis 
morem sibi discedendi fuisse, rursusque coeundi ad capiendum cibum, 
promiscuum tamen et innoxium ; quod ipsum facere desisse post edictum 
meum, quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram”. Observe 
that the Christians confess they are bound by an oath (this is the classical 
meaning of the term used by Pliny), an oath like that by which soldiers 
were bound to military service. Thus do they understand it themselves 
(2 Tim. 11. 4; Ianar. ‘‘ Polycarp.” 6). Later on TERTULLIAN, ‘‘ Martyr.” 
3, says: ““ Vocati sumus ad militiam Dei vivi iam tunc cum in sacramenti 
verba respondimus”’. So conscious are the Christians of being an associa- 
tion that, as soon as the edict against the hetaeriae is published, the less 
courageous turn their back on Christianity. Again it may be noticed that 
the oath by which Christians are bound obliges them to abstain from 
those sins which in Tertullian’s age were called mortal. Also we may 
remark that the Christian worship is essentially social: convenire, carmen 
dicere secum invicem, coeundi ad cibum, That cibus is the Hucharist, 


24 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hence the law condemns the name itself: the only question 
that arises is as to whether the law aims at the name apart 
from any crime, or at the crimes that are imputed to the 
name; and if this question arises, it is simply because as 
yet the law makes no distinction. 

Pliny hesitates to apply so simple a law, just as under 
the French Directory (1795-99) some officials hesitated at 
times to apply the laws of the Convention (1792-95) against 
those priests who had refused to accept, under oath, the 
Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Yet Pliny does apply the 
law. ‘Those who denied that they were or had been 
Christians, ought, I thought, to be dismissed when they re- 
peated after me a prayer to the gods and made supplication 
with incense and wine to your image—which .J had ordered 
to be brought in for the purpose, together with the statues 
of the gods—and when besides they cursed Christus, not one 
of which things, they say, those who are really Christians 
can be compelled to do”. This is a mere test and a way of 
administering the oath to the accused who are examined: 
they are to be considered guilty not of having refused to offer 
incense and wine to the statues of the gods and of the 
Emperor, but of being Christians, since any one who cannot 
be prevailed upon to perform those idolatrous practices 
shows by that very fact that he is a Christian. The legate 
is bent, not on making the Christians pay to the Emperor 
and to the gods the worship due to them, but on making 
them give up Christianity. ‘‘ It seems possible,” he says, 
‘““to stay the infection of this superstition and apply to it 
aremedy. It is already reported that the temples, which 
had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented 
again, that the sacred rites, which had been neglected for a 
long time, have begun to be restored, and that the flesh of 
the victims, for which till now there was scarcely a purchaser, 
is sold. From which one may readily judge what a number 
of men can be reclaimed, if repentance is permitted.” Pliny 
would willingly do his best to prevent the evil, instead of 
punishing it with severity: an existing law forbids him to 
tolerate it. He will endeavour indeed to bring back by 
means of kindness those who are undecided; but at the 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 25 


same time he will subdue the stubborn by the application 
of the law." 

This is what Trajan answers: ‘‘ You have followed the 
right course, my Secundus, in conducting the cases of those 
who were accused before you as Christians, for no general 
rule can be laid down. They ought not to be sought out 
(Conquirendi non sunt); if they are brought before you and 
convicted they ought to be punished; provided that he who 
denies that he is a Christian and proves this by making 
supplication to our gods, however much he may have been 
under suspicion in the past, secures pardon on repent- 
ance.” By this rescript Trajan does not make the law: he 
merely comments upon it. ““ Conquirendi non sunt,” the 
Emperor says: this is the mitigation he introduces into the 
existing legislation. ‘‘Puniendi sunt, si deferantur et 
arguantur”’: this is the purport of the legislation itself. 
Christianity is tolerated, as seventeen centuries later, during 
the French revolution, the ministry of the “refractory ” 
priests was to be tolerated; but, in case of a denunciation, 
the law, to which appeal is made, must of necessity punish. 
Such is, in the hands of Trajan, the deadly inheritance of 
the Neronian legislation.” 

It is, then, to Nero that we must ascribe the commence- 
ment of the legislation against Christianity. Some critics 
do not regard this ascertain. ‘There must ... have been 
[before Trajan] a definite moment when the supreme authority 
in such matters decided that to be a Christian was a penal 
offence. At what time did this occur? It is very difficult 
to ascertain. Before Trajan, two persecutions are generally 
supposed to have taken place, that of Nero and that of 


1The idea of crimes connected with the name, which originated in 
the most atrocious slanders regarding the Christian worship (infanticide, 
anthropophagy, incest) was destined to continue for many years. ORIGEN 
speaks of some of his pagan contemporaries, who, in their abhorrence for 
the bad reputation of Christians, made it a point of self-respect not to ad- 
dress any one of them (“Contra Celsum,” v1. 27). 

2See the earliest commentary on Trajan’s rescript, in TeRTULL. 
*¢ Apolog.” 2. Compare Ciement of AxEx. “Stromat.” vi. 18 τος Viz 
1x. col. 400 c) : τὴν ἡμετέραν διδασκαλίαν ἔκτοτε σὺν Kal τῇ πρώτῃ καταγγελίᾳ 
κωλύουσιν ὁμοῦ βασιλεῖς καὶ τύραννοι κιτ.λ. : “ Our religion, on its very first 


” 


proclamation, was: prohibited both by kings and tyrants”. 


26 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Domitian. But the details recorded of these persecutions— 
the martyrdom of Roman Christians falsely charged with the 
conflagration in 64, and the death of a certain number of 
men of high rank, whom Domitian put out of the way 
as atheists—are isolated occurrences easily accounted for 
quite apart from any official prohibition of Christianity, 
and may have taken place before the existence of any pro- 
scriptive law. They do not therefore throw much light on 
the question.”! We shall not then infer anything either 
from these facts, or from the vague and uncertainly dated 
text found in the Prima Petri (Iv. 15). But the following 
is a more conclusive argument. 

The recollection of the Christians for many years after 
the event was that Nero had intended not only to do away 
with the Apostles Peter and Paul and punish severely the 
faithful of Rome, but to annihilate Christianity altogether 
by making its profession a capital crime. This recollection 
is recorded by Sulpitius Severus and by Orosius,? and still 
more clearly by Tertullian. Twice this last writer recalls 
that Nero condemned the Christian name: ‘“‘ Principe 
Augusto hoe nomen ortum est. Tiberio disciplina eius 
inluait. Sub Nerone damnatio invaluit. .. . Quales sumus 
damnator ipse demonstrarvit.... Ht tamen permansit 
erasis omnibus hoc solum institutum neromanum.”* And 
under Tertullian’s pen the word institutwm means law. 
At all events, it is a question of a lasting and prohibitive 
measure: damnatio permansit. In another text, Tertullian 
reminds his reader that it is Nero who enacted the law that 
forbids Christianity: ‘‘ Consulite commentarios vestros. lic 
reperietis prumum Neronem im hance sectam cum maxime 
Romae orventem caesariano gladio ferocisse. Sed tali de- 
dicatore damnationis nostrae etiam gloriamur.”* The 


1 DucHEsnE, ‘‘ Histoire ancienne de |’Eglise,” vol. 1. p. 106. 

2Suxnp. Sev. “Chron.” τι. 28. Oros. “Hist.” vir. 7. The same 
recollection is also found in the ‘‘ Ascensio Isaiae,” tv. 2-3 (ed. R. H. 
Cares, London, 1900, pp. 24-6) ; but this passage does not belong to the 
primitive text of this apocryphal writing, so we had better not use it. 
Scutrer, vol. m1. p. 282. 

3TrertuLL. ‘Ad Nation.” 1. 7. 

‘Tertut. ‘‘ Apolog.”’ 5. In “ Scorpiace,” 15, he takes up the same 
thought: “ Kt si fidem commentarii-voluerit haereticus, instrumenta im- 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 27 


word commentarit designates the imperial archives.! In 
other places, he speaks more simply of the Vitae Caesaruwm, 
probably those composed by Suetonius. Even granting 
that there is some rhetorical exaggeration in these refer- 
ences, it is beyond doubt that Tertullian alludes here to 
a bloody and legal persecution, emanating from the Em- 
peror’s authority. The same fact is still more distinctly 
affirmed by another document, in fact the oldest document 
in our possession, that of Suetonius. 

Suetonius who wrote in the year 120; Suetonius who 
is not one of those historians who, like Tacitus, are also 
psychologists and tragedians, rich in divinations and artistic 
devices, but one who records events with the artless ac- 
curacy and realism of a table of contents; Suetonius who 
frequently seems to take special pains to mention the im- 
portant decisions of Emperors, magistrates, and the Senate, 
in enumerations that are like titles of laws filed one after 
the other and are probably borrowed literally from the 
“ Acta diurna popult”; Suetonius does not connect the 
proceedings undertaken against Christians with the fire of 
the year 64. Moreover he relates that the Christians were 
condemned to die, ‘‘ because they followed a new and vici- 
ous superstition,” a statement which is clearly not a mere 
literary divination, but tells of a particular kind of legal 
offence. This statement is found in one of those enumera- 
tions of laws so frequent in Suetonius. The law it pre- 
supposes is not referred to as a proof of Nero’s cruelty, but 
as one of the few beneficial laws enacted by that prince, 
rigorous or new laws which are a credit to his rule. They 
are such as tend to suppress abuses or to preserve public 
morality: laws against luxury, against taverns, against 
Christians, against coachmen, against actors, against forgers. 

.. This amounts to an assertion that a special law 
plaved Christianity under the ban :— 

“ Multa sub eo [Nerone] et animadversa severe et coercita 
nec minus instituta : adhibitus sumptibus modus ; publicae 
caenae ad sportulas redactae; interdictum ne quid in 


perii loquentur, ut lapides Ierusalem. Vitas Caesarum legimus: orientem 
fidem Romae primus Nero cruentavit.”’ 
‘Fass, pp. 321-6. These archives were kept secret. 


28 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


popinis cocti praeter legumina aut holera veniret, cwm antea 
nullum non obsonii genus proponeretur ; adflictt suppliciis 
christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac malefica ; 
vetiti quadrigariorum lusus, quibus wnveterata licentia 
passim vagantibus fallere ac furari per vocum jus erat ; 
pantomimorum factiones cum ipsis simul relegatae; ad- 
versus falsarios. .. .”} 

This being said, we may now conclude as follows :— 

From the events of the year 64 it is evident that 
Christianity is at this time publicly recognized as distinct 
from Judaism, and that it has not only ceased to be pro- 
tected by the laws which still protect Judaism—‘ sub wm- 
braculo insignissimae religions, certe licitae’’*—but comes 
also under a legal prohibition aimed directly at it, and 
enacted by Nero. This prohibitive legislation determined, 
we may say, the civil status of Christianity. 


LT 


Since, even as early as the first Christian generation, 
Christianity separated itself from Judaism, it could no longer 
depend on unity of race as a foundation for its own unity ; 
nor could it establish its unity on the observance of a Law 
which, in the eyes of Christians, had come to an end. Is 
it destined, then, to be made up of a widely-dispersed and 
uncertain multitude of recruits held together by no common 
bond, like the class of proselytes known as « those who feared 
God”. If so, Christianity would have been but as the dust, 
as incapable of perpetuity as the work of those missionary 
philosophers who, like the Cynics, were prolific in all the 
Greek cities and in Rome.’ 

The result would have been similar, had the Christianity 
of the first generation been a ‘spiritual’? movement, such 
as Montanism was to be later. 

It is well known that there was, in the earliest Christian 


‘Sueton. “ Nero,” 16. ? TERTULL. “ Apologet.” 21. 

*See Oricen, “Contra Cels.” m1. 50, where both Origen and Celsus 
mention those propagandists whom one could meet in every public square. 
On the philosophical propagandism pine the people, cf. WENDLAND, p. 
39 and foll. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 29 


communities, an extraordinary and exceptionally abundant 
outpouring of ‘‘charisms” (this is the term used by St. 
Paul), charisms due to an inspiration which was at times 
truly supernatural, at other times supernatural only in appear- 
ance. They are met with in many pages of the Acts: the 
Spirit gives commands; the Spirit foretells the future; the 
Spirit manifests itself in visions, dreams, ecstasies, prayers, 
and songs; the Spirit diffuses itself in gifts that are strange, 
even at times disordered and inexplicable, as the gift of 
tongues, for instance. Looking back on the past, the author 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews pictured to himself the early 
preaching of Christianity, as based indeed on the testimony 
of those who had heard the Lord, but also on the co-opera- 
tion of “‘God bearing them witness by signs and wonders, 
and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost 
according to His own will’’.! 

However, a fact equally unquestionable is that Chris- 
tianity was constituted in such a way that of itself it reacted 
against the excessive sway of those charisms.? St. Paul, 
who undoubtedly believed in the co-operation of the Spirit 
with his apostolic work, and in the real action of the Spirit 
in charisms, does not look upon these manifestations of 
the Spirit as supreme and exempt from all supervision; on 
the contrary, he holds them to be subordinated to two 
principles: first the received and authentic faith, and then 
the edification of the community. ‘“ But though we, or an 
angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that 
which we have preached to you, let him be anathema”’ 
(Gal. 1. 8).2 ‘Wherefore I give you to understand, that no 


1 Heb. τι. 3,4. Onthe charisms of the Apostolic age, the reader may 
consult with profit F. Prat, ‘‘ Théologie de Saint Paul” (Paris, 1908), 
pp. 182-4. As to the historical distinction between the charism and the 
ministry, in the first century, cf. H. Bruprrs, ‘‘ Die Verfassung der 
Kirche bis zum Jahre 175 nach Chr.”’ (Mainz, 1904), pp. 62-103. 

2 Cf. H. Gunxet, ‘‘ Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes”’ (G6ttingen, 
1899), pp. 66-71, and Harwnack, “ Mission,” vol. 1. pp. 172-178.—The 
charism which plays a predominant part during the first two Christian 
generations, is that of prophecy. But the more important that part be- 
comes, the more manifest also becomes the authority by which it is ruled 
and overshadowed. 

5 Τῇ classical Greek, the word ἀνάθημα signifies an offering dedicated 
to a god, to a temple. Later on—and then it was written avabepa—it 


90 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


man speaking by the spirit of God, saith Anathema to Jesus” 
(1 Cor. xu. 8). Here we may recall the whole instruc- 
tion of St. Paul to the Corinthians regarding the gifts of 
the Spirit and the use to be made of them (1 Cor. xu. 1- 
xiv. 40). He exhorts the Christians of Corinth to aspire 
after charisms, the gifts of the Spirit, ‘‘ but especially that 
of prophecy”. He is afraid of the disordered character and 
of the unintelligible manifestations of the “‘ glossolalia,”’ 1.8. 
the gift of tongues. The prophet speaks to men, is under- 
stood by them, gives them edification, encouragement, 
consolation, whilst the Christian who speaks by tongues is 
understood by no one. In his good sense, the Apostle feels 
but little interested in those fruitless displays :— 


xiv. 6. ‘ But now, brethren, if I come to you, speaking with tongues, 
what shall I profit you unless I speak to you either in revelation, or in 
knowledge, or in prophecy, or in doctrine? 7. Even things without life 
that give sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction of 
sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? 9. For if the 
trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle ? 
. . . 10. However many kinds of tongues there may be in this world, 
none of them consist of unintelligible sounds. . . . 14. For if I pray in 
tongues, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is without fruit... . 
18. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all. 19. But in 
the church 1 had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I 
may instruct others also, than ten thousand words in tongues... . 
23. If therefore the whole church come together into one place, and all 
speak with tongues, and there come in unlearned or unbelieving persons, 
will they not say that you are mad? . . . 26. How is it then, brethren ? 
When you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, or a doctrine, 
or a revelation, or a tongue, or an interpretation, but let all things be 
done to edification. . . . 37. If any seem,to be a prophet, or spiritual, 
let him know the things that I write to you, that they are the command- 
ments of the Lord.” 


In presence of the outpourings of the Spirit, the right 
is proclaimed of an authority whose mission it is to preserve 


signified in current Greek, especially in that used for inscriptions, what 
is consecrated to the infernal gods, therefore what is under a curse. The 
LXX uses the word to express the Hebrew hevem, that which is cursed 
and doomed to be suppressed or exterminated. In this way the word, 
anathema, definitely acquired its historical meaning of cursed, rejected, 
vowed to destruction. EK. Buonaiuti, ‘‘Saggi di filologia e storia del 
N. T.” (Roma, 1910), pp. 105-108, and Drissmann, p. 60. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 31 


the received order and faith, the Lord’s commands, the 
teaching of the Apostle, the edification of the Church: 
““God is not a God of disorder’. All this is decisively 
affrmed long before the rise of Montanism. 

ii 

Christianity, then, was not a mere religion of extra- 
ordinary ways, nor was it exclusively a religion of charity. 
We must, indeed, attach a great importance to the social 
solidarity which it established among all its members. The 
love and aid which a Jew was sure to find in every jewry, 
Christianity assured to the Christian; and of all the words 
of the Gospel, few have come home more forcibly to the 
Christian heart than the logion; “I was hungry, and 
you gave me to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me to 
drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: naked, and 
you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, 
and you came to me” (Matt. xxv. 35-6). Nothing in 
Christianity impressed the pagans more than the love of 
Christians for one another; and it has been justly remarked 
that the tendency towards association has not been in the 
history of Christianity a fortuitous occurrence but an essen- 
tial element, for from the very start Christianity has been a 
brotherhood.! 

From Judaism it inherited a religious esteem for alms- 
giving. The history of Tabitha in the Acts (Ix. 36-43) 
seems a Christian replica of the history of Tobias and a 
commentary on the words: Eleemosyna a morte liberat 
(Tob. tv. 11, xu. 9). In this spirit of alms-giving, there is 
not even a shadow of communism, since it is desirable that 
every Christian should have something to give that he may 
have the merit, the spiritual profit and the joy, of giving 
(Acts xx. 33-5). 

Alms-giving, which by its own innate law must extend 
first of all to fellow-Christians (Gal. vi. 10), is practised in 


11 Thess. tv. 9-10; Rom. x1. 10-13. The communism of the early 
Christians, concerning which so much has been written, never existed in 
the Gentile, nor even in the Jewish Christian communities : alms-giving 
always remained free, and property personal. Harnack, ‘ Mission,” 
vol. 1. p. 131, note, and HK. von Dozsscuiiz, ‘‘ Probleme des apostolischen 
Zeitalters”’ (Leipzig, 1904), p. 39. 


32 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


two ways: by hospitality (φυλοξενία), which consists in wel- 
coming a travelling brother,! and readiness to join in gener- 
ous contributions for common purposes (κοινωνία). By 
means of a regular organization of alms-giving, help is given 
to the poor members of the local community, and also to 
missionaries. The expenses of religious propaganda are 
met in the same way. Even remote communities receive 
aid in their times of distress. Every Christian community 
seems to have a common chest, to which each one of the 
faithful brings every Sunday the offering he is able to make 
(1 Cor. xv1.1,2). For instance, the community of Philippi 
in Macedonia, can keep for the use of St. Paul, then in 
Rome, a sort of current account from which he can draw 
according to his needs (Philip. tv. 15-16). Such is the duty 
of rich communities: “Be instant in prayer,” writes St. 
Paul, «contributing to the necessities of the saints, ever 
anxious to give hospitality.”? The Christians of Jerusalem 
who are extremely poor are helped by voluntary collections 
made for them in all the wealthy communities of the Gentile 
world.® 

Between the various communities there is a constant 
exchange of guests, of missionaries, of aids, of counsels of 
edification, and of affectionate control. The following 
words of Harnack, which refer directly to the data supplied 
by the Ignatian Epistles, are equally true of Christianity as 
manifested in the Pauline Epistles: « What a continuity 
of intercourse there is between the churches! What one- 
ness of soul! What brotherly solicitude! Financial sup- 
port retires into the background here. The foreground of 
the picture is filled by proofs of that personal solidarity by 
means of which whole churches are bound together . . 
aid one another, console and strengthen one another, and 
share their sorrows and their joys. Here we come upon a 
whole world of solidarity and mutual love.” 4 


1Rom. xvi. 1-2, 23. 

?Rom. xu. 13. Cf. Heb. xm. 2-3, 16; 1 Pet. rv. 8-9. 

ὁ Rom. xv. 25-8 ; 2 Cor. vim. 1-rx. 15; Gal. τι. 10; Acts xr. 27-30. 
At Jerusalem, wealth was in the hands of the Sadducees, and Christianity 
made its recruits chiefly from among the poorest classes. 

* Harnack, “ Mission,” vol. 1.-p. 165 and ff. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 99 


Most certainly, early Christianity was all that, and by it 
was able to win many souls; but Christians were brothers 
because of their faith, and there is no brotherhood save in 
the fellowship of the same faith; hence this brotherhood is 
an application, not a principle. Indeed, no one would ever 
think of recognizing in mere altruism the generating prin- 
ciple of the new religion and of its unity. 


Jone 
* 


Must we seek that principle in the stable community- 
organization which Christianity assumed from the begin- 
ning? The more fully historians came to know of the 
organization of the pagan collegia, the more did they 
incline to look upon each Christian community as an associ- 
ation founded after the collegiate model.! Would not such 
an assimilation help to account for the formation of Christi- 
anity into a Church? 

This hypothesis has lost prestige in proportion as the 
ascertainable facts have been more carefully studied, for it 
has become evident that Christianity was a religion, not of 
colleges, but of cities.2 As early as the first generation, 
wherever it is established, for instance in large cities like 
Antioch and Rome, it forms neither separate synagogues 
like those of the Jews of Rome, nor autonomous colleges, 
like the pagan collegia: its followers have for their meet- 
ing-place the house of such or such a Christian. All the 
Christians of the city, however large it may be, make up but 
one and the same confraternity or ἐκκλησία which is called 
after the city. Whilst the worship of Mithra grows in the 
way of chapels or confraternities, which divide into separate 
confraternities when the number of the worshippers of the 
god increases, the law of Christianity on the contrary—a 
law that holds, long before the principle of the monarchical 
episcopate reveals itself as everywhere in vigour—is that 
there is but one church in each city, and that no church in 
any part of the world is isolated from the other churches. 


1Hatcu, “The Organization of the Early Christian Churches” 
(London, 1888), pp. 26 and foll. 

*Hapnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. τι. p. 278. R. Knorr, “ Nachapostol- 
icher Zeitalter ” (Tiibingen, 1905), p. 61. 


94 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


This twofold fact cannot be accounted for by the social or- 
ganization of the collegza. 

We must observe too that Christianity detached itself from 
the jewries, and the jewries had a community-organization 
which was not at all like the organization of collegia: the 
former existed in virtue of a legal status different from the 
legal status of the latter. Had it been necessary for the 
Christian communities to seek recognition as collegia they 
would have been too late, and their legalization would have 
been impossible. 

The question has arisen as regards the legal status of 
ecclesiastical property in the third century: at that time, 
churches possessed cemeteries and places of worship—a pro- 
prietorship acknowledged certainly as early as the time of 
Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-35), perhaps even as early as 
the end of the second century. ‘‘ The common people were 
allowed to associate, in order to provide for themselves decent 
burial: these associations were allowed to collect monthly 
subscriptions, to hold property, and to have religious meet- 
ings; they were represented by an actor, or syndic, an 
official authorized to act in their name. Inscriptions prove 
that these clubs abounded throughout the empire. Why 
should not the Christian societies have been admitted to 
these privileges?’’? De Rossi endeavoured to explain by 
such an adaptation of Christianity to the legislation regarding 
collegia funeraticia, the character of ecclesiastical property 
during the third century. However, this theory of De 
Rossi’s has not been generally accepted, even for the third 
century when the legislation concerning the collegia had 
become more lenient. For how could Christianity, which 
was a religion, have concealed itself under the fictitious 
name of small funeral collegia 2? Who could have been de- 
ceived by the device? How could it have been possible for 
the Christian worship, with its meetings held every Sunday 
and often during the week, to be protected by a legislation 
which allowed the colleges to meet only once a month? 


* Josepnus, ‘‘ Antiq.”’ xiv. 10,8: Cesar forbids the colleges called 
also θίασοι, and allows the synagogues. ! 

3 DucHEsnEe, ‘‘ Histoire Ancienne,” vol. 1. pp. 383-4, Cf. Grrarp, 
“ Textes de droit romain” (Paris, 1895), pp. 775-9. 


THE JEWISH DISPERSION AND CATHOLICISM 35 


How could Christians, who were admitted to communion in 
any church they visited, have complied with a legislation 
which forbade any one to belong to more than one such 
college 91 

The theory is still less probable for the first two cen- 
turies, for then the legislation for the collegia was extremely 
severe, treating the formation of a collegywm ilicitum as 
a crime,” and recognizing as lawful only a college sanctioned 
by the Emperor or the Senate. Did any Christian com- 
munity ever ask this authorization? It is hard to see how 
it could have done so, since Christianity was precluded from 
the possibility of being authorized as a college, by the very 
fact that it was prohibited as a religion, relagio wlicita. 


1Marctay, ‘ Institution.” lib. m1. (‘‘ Digest.” lib. xivir. tit. ΧΧΤΙ. 
fr. 1): ‘*‘ Mandatis principalibus praecipitur praesidibus provinciarum, ne 
patiantur esse collegia sodalicia, neve milites collegia in castris habeant. 
Sed permittitur tenuioribus stipem menstruam conferre, dum tamen 
semel in mense coeant, ne sub praetextu huiusmodi illicitum collegium 
coeat. Quod non tantum in Urbe, sed et in Italia et in provinciis locum 
habere divus quoque Severus rescripsit. Sed religionis causa coire non 
prohibentur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat contra senatus consultum, quo 
illicita collegia arcentur. Non licet autem amplius quam unum collegium 
licitum habere, ut est constitutum et a divis fratribus: et si quis in duobus 
fuerit, rescriptum est eligere eum oportere in quo magis esse velit . . .”’ 
(O. Lenet, ‘‘ Turis consultorum reliquiae,” v. 1. (Leipzig, 1889), p. 194). 

2 Unpran, ‘‘ De officio proconsul.” lib. vi. (“ Digest.” lib. xivir. tit. 
xxi. fr. 2): ‘Quisquis illicitum collegium usurpaverit, ea poena tenetur, 
qua tenentur qui hominibus armatis loca publica vel templa occupasse 
iudicati sunt” (LENEL, V. 11. p. 972). 

3 Garus, ‘‘ Edictum provinciale,” lib. mr. (‘‘ Digest. ” lib 11. tit. Iv. 
fr. 1): “ Neque societas neque collegium neque huiusmodi corpus passim 
omnibus habere conceditur: nam et legibus et senatus consultis et prin- 
cipalibus constitutionibus ea res coercetur. Paucis admodum in causis 
concessa sunt huiusmodi corpora: ut ecce vectigalium publicorum sociis 
permissum est corpus habere, vel aurifodinarum, vel argentifodinarum et 
salinarum. Item collegia Romae certa sunt, quorum corpus senatus 
consultis atque constitutionibus principalibus confirmatum est, veluti 
pistorum et quorundam aliorum, et naviculariorum, qui et in provinciis 
sunt. Quibus autem permissum est corpus habere collegii societatis sive 
cuiusque alterius eorum nomine, proprium est ad exemplum rei publicae 
habere res communes, arcam communem et actorem sive syndicum, per 
quem tamquam in re publica, quod communiter agi fierique oporteat, 
agatur fiat. ...” (LENEL, v. 1. p. 194).—Cf. Surron. ‘‘Caes.” 42: 
‘*Cuncta collegia praeter antiquitus constituta distraxit.’’ ‘‘ Aug.” 32: 
‘* Collegia praeter antiqua et aes dissolvit.”’ 


36 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hence we may conclude that a Christian community 
was not a college, and that Christianity was not a federation 
of colleges. Christianity was in the Roman sense of the word 
areligio. But it was of the essence of such a religio to be 
a social bond uniting its members. Using the word corpus 
which was the legal term to designate an association, 
Tertullian writes, about the year 200: ‘Corpus sumus 
de conscientia religionis, et disciplinae unitate, et sper 
Foedere” 

The divine originality of Christianity consists in the 
fact that it inaugurated in the world—not a charismatic or 
prophetic movement, still less a movement of eschatological 
suspense and anxiety—not a brotherhood, with reciprocity 
of aid and affection, superior to any exclusivism due to 
diversity of race—but, in Tertullian’s appropriate words, a 
religious revelation, a rule of conduct, a covenant of hopes: 
all this held and lived in common by the “ faithful,” 
the ‘‘ brethren,” the “Select” of each church and of all the 
churches. At its rise this corpus had no legal existence ; 
when the law began to notice it, it was to proscribe it as a 
capital crime. Yet it did not then dissolve: it resisted and 
kept united, in spite of all efforts to the contrary. This is 
the Catholic phenomenon, the true principle of which we 
have to discover. 


1“ Apologet.”” 39. Compare OriceNn, ‘‘Contra Celsum,” τ 1: 
Celsus charges the Christians with forming secret and unlawful associa- 
tions: for, he says, associations which are conformable to the law are 
public : those which are kept secret are such as the law proscribes : συνθήκας 
κρύβδην πρὸς ἀλλήλους ποιουμένων χριστιανῶν παρὰ τὰ νενομισμένα, ὅτι TOY 
συνθηκῶν αἱ μέν εἰσι φανεραί, ὅσαι κατὰ νόμους γίγνονται, αἱ δὲ ἀφανεῖς, ὅσαι 
παρὰ τὰ νενομισμένα συντελοῦνται. Celsus wrote about the year 180. In 
the “Octavius” of Minutius Felix, Christianity is denounced by the 
opponent as a factio illicita, a profana coniuratio, an eruenda et execranda 
consensio (“ Octav.” 8-9). We find always the idea of association and 
of conspiracy. 


CHAPTER IT. 
THE INFANT CHURCH. 
if 


THE word ἀπόστολος belongs to classical Greek, where, taken 
as a substantive, it means a messenger, missus.| The 
word is found only once in the LXX (1 Kings xiv. 6). On 
the contrary, it is used frequently in the New Testament.’ 
This already suggests the distinctly Christian character of 
the Apostolate as an institution. 

Judaism had indeed its apostles; but it would be a 
mistake to identify them, as regards their functions, with 
those known to primitive Christianity. The Jewish ἀποστολή 
is a late institution, unknown both to Josephus and to the 
ancient rabbinical sources. Itseems to have arisen after the 
destruction of the Temple, and in connexion with that 
Jewish patriarchate which, at Iabneh, served for many years 
as a centre of national and religious life for Judaism.? We 
are told by Eusebius of Cesarea that the Jews were wont 
to call ἀπόστολοι the messengers they sent out to carry 
to those addressed the circular letters of their authorities, 
i.e.—in this case—of the patriarchate of Iabneh ; of course, 
this attestation refers only to the time of EKusebius.t How- 
ever, Eusebius affirms, in the same passage, that he has 


1G. Dirrensercer, “Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum” (Leipzig, 
1901), vol. m1. p. 170, index, at the word ἀπόστολος. 

2 Licutroot, “ Galat.” (1887), p. 94, remarks that the word ἀπόστολος 
is found in the New Testament seventy-nine times, of which sixty-eight are 
in St. Paul and in St. Luke. 

83 ScHURER, vol. m1. p. 77. 

4 Kuses. “In Is.” xvint. 1. A similar attestation is found in St. 
Epiph. “ Haer.”” xxx. 4, 11; in the Theodosian code, xvi. 8, 14; in St. 
Jerome, “In Gal.” 1. 1. 

37 


98 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


found ‘‘in the writings of the ancients,” that at the begin- 
ning of Christianity ‘“‘ the priests and ancients of the people of 
the Jews, who dwelt in Jerusalem, drew up and despatched 
letters to the Jews throughout every country, slandering 
the doctrine of Christ as a new-fangled heresy which was 
hostile to God. ... Their ἀπόστολοι, conveying letters 
written on papyrus, spread themselves over the earth mis- 
representing what was said of our Saviour.”* This state- 
ment, taken from ‘the writings of the ancients,’ seems 
to be borrowed by Eusebius from St. Justin, who, in the 
‘Dialogue with the Jew Trypho” alludes three times to 
the ‘‘chosen men sent from Jerusalem to all countries, 
to say that a godless heresy, termed the Christian, had 
lately sprung up,” and also to the ‘‘chosen men commis- 
sioned and sent throughout the whole world to announce 
that an atheistical heresy in opposition to the Law had been 
spread by one Jesus, a deceiver from Galilee, whose body, 
after He had been crucified, His disciples stole by night from 
the tomb in which He was laid . . . and they now deceive 
mankind, saying that He has risen from the dead, and as- 
cended into Heaven.”? Justin’s statement is, apparently, a 
supposition suggested by the narrative of the action taken 
by the chief priests and the Pharisees to urge Pilate to guard 
Jesus’ tomb;* hence it has not the value of a fact. 

It is beyond question, however, that the Judaism con- 
temporaneous with the Gospel and with the earliest preach- 
ing of Christianity had also a kind of apostles. Jerusalem 
communicated with the jewries of the Dispersion by means 
of letters and messengers. On his arrival at Rome as a 
prisoner, St. Paul calls together the chief men of the Jews 
to justify himself before them. They answer him in these 
words: ‘‘ We neither received letters concerning thee from 
Judea, neither did any of the brethren that came hither, re- 
late or speak any evil of thee. But we desire to hear of thee 
what thou thinkest: for as concerning this sect, we know 
that it is gainsayed everywhere” (Acts xxv. 21-2). We 
must suppose, then, that the Jews might have received some 
official letter denouncing Paul to them. The custom of the 


1 Kusne. l.c. 2 Justin, ‘‘ Dialog.” xvi. and cv. 2. 
5. Matt. xxvir. 62-6. ; 


THE INFANT CHURCH 39 


Jews in such cases was well known to Paul, who formerly 
had gone to the High Priest and asked him for letters to 
the synagogues of Damascus. ‘Saul as yet breathing out 
threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, 
went to the high priest, and asked of him letters to 
Damascus, to the synagogues: that if he found any men and 
women of this way, he might bring them bound to Jeru- 
salem.’’! Saul had asked and obtained a mission from the 
Jerusalem authorities; he was, then, a kind of delegate 
commissioned by the High Priest, and was, in this sense, a 
Jewish ἀπόστολος. However, in relating the incident the 
author of Acts does not use the word ἀπόστολος; and, 
cranting that at certain epochs similar missions were often 
entrusted by the Jerusalem authorities to Jews who were 
thus sent to some of the jewries of the Dispersion, we must 
not forget that these missions were only temporary and oc- 
casional. 

Hence, dissenting from Harnack,? we believe that the 
apostolate of the first Christian generation was not an in- 
stitution borrowed from Judaism. Let us try then to fix 
with more precision what this first Christian generation 
meant by the name. 

aay 
* 

In the first place, the name has a general meaning, in 
which it signifies simply a ‘‘messenger”’. The Philippians 
have sent help to St. Paul by the hands of Epaphroditus: 
St. Paul sends Epaphroditus back to Philippi, the bearer of 
the Epistle to the Philippians: “1 have thought it neces- 
sary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow- 
labourer and fellow-soldier, but your apostle and minister to 
my wants” (Phil. 1. 25). 

Paul writes to the Corinthians that he sends them 
Titus, and with Titus two other brethren: ‘Titus is my 
companion and fellow-labourer towards you; as to (the two 
others) our brethren, they are apostles of the churches” (2 
Cor. vit. 23). In these two instances, the word apostle 


1 Acts ix. 1-2. The text implies that there are several synagogues 
at Damascus. Cf. xxm. 5, xxvi. 9-12. 
2 “Ὁ Mission,” vol. 1. pp. 274-277. 


40 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


seems to have only the meaning of messenger, or of servant.’ 
With that meaning in his mind, St. John puts on the 
Saviour’s lips these words: ‘The servant is not greater 
than his lord; nor an ἀπόστολος greater than he that sent 
him” (John x1. 16). 

In the second place, the word apostle, whilst still re- 
maining a common name, gradually tends towards its his- 
torical meaning, through the expression “apostle of Jesus 
Christ,” an expression of which St. Paul is fond. It is the 
title with which he accompanies his name at the beginning 
of most of his Epistles: ‘‘ Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, 
called by the will of God” (1 Cor. 1. 1); ‘‘ Paul, an apostle 
of Christ Jesus, by the will of God” (2 Cor. 1,1; Eph.1. 1). 
So too in the Pastoral Epistles. On the other hand, 
when Paul places in the subscription of some epistle, to- 
gether with his own name, the names of some of his co- 
workers, he is careful not to give them a title which is not 
theirs. He writes at the beginning of the Epistle to the 
Philippians: ‘‘ Paul and Timothy, the servants of Christ 
Jesus” (Phil. 1.1); to the Colossians: ‘‘ Paul, an apostle 
of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, and Timothy [his] 
brother” (Col. 1. 1); to the Thessalonians: ‘‘ Paul and Sy]l- 
vanus and Timothy” only (1 and 2 Thess. 1.1); to the 
Corinthians: ‘‘ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will 
of God, and Timothy [his] brother” (2 Cor. 1.1). Unlike 
the appellation “‘servant of Christ,” the appellation ‘apostle 
of Christ” does not signify a moral quality, but an excep- 
tional mission. 

However, Paul does not claim for himself alone this 
quality of Christ’s apostle: he recognizes it in others, ‘‘the 
other Apostles,” among whom he reckons “the brethren of 
the Lord and Cephas”’ and also Barnabas (1 Cor. rx. 6-7). 
On the contrary, Timothy is nowhere called an Apostle; nor 
is Apollos, nor—although the contrary has been maintained 
—Sylvanus. As to Andronicus and Junias (Rom. xXvI. 7), 
there is some doubt; “‘ Salute Andronicus and Junias, my 


‘See Acts xv. 22-3, in which Barsabas and Silas are thus despatched 
to Antioch by the church of Jerusalem. See also their letter (vv. 23-9). 
The case of Tychicus is exactly the same, in Eph. γι. 21-2. Of. Scntirer, 
vol. m1. p. 77. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 41 


kinsmen and fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the 
Apostles (ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις), Who also were in Christ 
before me’’. Weare inclined to believe, with Lightfoot and 
Harnack,! that Andronicus and Junias, who had been con- 
verted before Paul, and were consequently of the number of 
the earliest Christians, missionaries to the Dispersion who 
had been imprisoned for a while—where we cannot deter- 
mine—as St. Paul had been many a time (2 Cor. x1. 23) 
were of the number of the Apostles, rather than ‘‘of note 
in the eyes of the Apostles”’. 

From this some have inferred that, for St. Paul, the 
number of the Apostles may have been quite large: an in- 
ference which St. Paul himself insinuates. ‘‘ God indeed,” 
he writes to the Corinthians, ‘‘ hath set some in the church, 
first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly doctors, then those 
who have the gift of miracles, the graces of healing, of help- 
ing, of governing, of speaking divers tongues. Are all 
apostles? Are all prophets? Are all doctors? Are all 
workers of miracles?” (1 Cor. xu. 28-30). It is Christ, 
he says elsewhere, who has ‘‘made some apostles, and some 
prophets, and other some evangelists and other some pastors 
and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying 
of the body of Christ” (Eph. tv. 11-12). 

Let us accept the hypothesis that there were many 
apostles, as there were many prophets and teachers and 
thaumaturgi, during the earliest Christian generation. Does 
it follow that the apostolate is a mere charism, an individual 
gift of the Spirit? Such, we are told, is St. Paul’s concep- 
tion of the apostolate, but, if such is the case, in what does 
an apostle differ from a prophet? Whence comes to the 
apostle that constant pre-eminence which St. Paul ascribes 


1Licutroot, “Galatians,” p. 96. Harnack, “ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 
269. It is true that the question whether Junias is the name of a man or 
of a woman, may be raised. Sanpay—Heapiam, ‘ Romans” (1895), 
p. 242. Zaun, “‘ Kinleitung in das N. T.” vol. τ. (Leipzig, 1906), p. 297. 

* Cf. OrntcEN, “Τὰ Num. homil. xxvu.” 11: ‘‘ Visus, inquit [Paulus], 
est illis undecim, deinde apparuit et omnibus apostolis. In quo ostendit 
esse et alios apostolos, exceptis illis duodecim.’’ He speaks similarly in 
Comment. in Rom. x. 21, as regards Andronicus and Junias. In 
Trenaus (‘‘ Haer.” τι. 21, 1) and in TErtruniran (‘‘ Marcion.”’ 1v. 24), the 
seventy disciples are called ‘‘ apostles ”’. 


42 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


to him in the hierarchy described in the passages we have 
just quoted ? Some recent critics have spoken of what they 
call “‘a Pauline apostolate,” an immediate personal call, 
proceeding from God, assigning a special missionary field 
and bestowing spiritual autonomy within that field:* but 
there is nothing to justify such a notion in the Hpistles of 
St. Paul. Moreover, even supposing this definition to be 
grounded on history, why did not this apostolate endure ? 
Why did no one inherit such a spiritual office, since 
prophets, and prophetesses too, had successors, at least for a 
while? And how can we help supposing that the pre- 
eminence of the apostolate, which no one inherited, was due 
to a circumstance of fact which could not recur? 

ΧΙ * 

* 

This St. Paul can teach us better than any one else; 
for he had to defend his apostolic character against stubborn 
and bitter adversaries, who pursued him almost wherever 
he went—at Antioch, in Galatia, especially at Corinth, to 
contest his claim to the name and quality of apostle. From 
this fact alone we may gather how great was the importance 
attached to this name and quality. 

Those who made it their business thus to harass St. 
Paul are emissaries who have come from Judea; they are 
emissaries, 1.6. undoubtedly ἀπόστολοι- 10 the sense we de- 
scribed above when we spoke of the ἀπόστολοι τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν--- 
that is, emissaries accredited by some letter of the ‘‘ Saints” 
who resided there, in Judea (2 Cor. mr. 1). Paul looks 
upon them as apostles who have received their mission from 
men (Gal. 1. 1) whereas he, Paul, does not hold his mission 
from men. Hence the name, false apostles, which he gives 
them. ‘Such are false apostles, deceitful workmen, dis- 
guising themselves as the apostles of Christ. And no 
wonder: for even Satan himself disguiseth himself as an 
angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers 
(διάκονοι αὐτοῦ) be disguised as the ministers of justice: 
whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Cor. XI. 
13-15). 

But these emissaries claim to speak in the name of real 


1H. Monnigr, ‘‘ La notion de l’apostolat, des origines ἃ Irénée”’ 
(Paris, 1903), p. 35. : 


THE INFANT CHURCH 45 


Apostles, those who are at Jerusalem, and Paul, accused of 
usurping the apostolate, thus defends himself. 

(1 Cor. xv.) “1. Now I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel 
which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you 
stand; 2. By which also you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner 
I preached unto you. . . . 3. For I delivered unto you first of all, which 
I also received: how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scrip- 
tures: 4. And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day 
according to the scriptures: 5. And that he was seen by Cephas ; and after 
that by the twelve. 6. Then was he seen by more than five hundred brethren 
at once: of whom the greater part remain until this present, and some 
are fallen asleep. 7. After that he was seen by James, then by all the 
apostles. 8. And last of all he was seen also by me, as by one born out of 
due time. 9. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy 
to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10. But 
by the grace of God, Iam what Iam; and his grace in me hath not been 
void, but I have laboured more abundantly than all they: yet not I, but 
the grace of God with me.” 


Since an apostle is above all a missionary of the Gospel, 
St. Paul proves the authenticity of his apostolate first by the 
authenticity of the Gospel he has preached: he has taught 
what he had learnt. The authenticity of his apostolate is 
proved next by the help God has given him. For certainly 
Paul is, in every way, the least of the Apostles, and in his 
humility he insists strongly on this, the better to bring out 
the efficacy of the grace that has worked through him: a 
Christian community, like that of Corinth, which he has 
founded and in which God has sanctioned his work by the 
outpouring of His graces, becomes an empirical justification 
of the apostle’s apostolate. ‘‘Do we need (as some do) 
epistles of commendation to you, or from you? You are 
our epistle, written in our hearts, which is known and read 
by all men: You are an epistle of Christ, written through 
our ministry not with ink, but with the spirit of the living 
God” (2 Cor. 11. 1-3). 

In the third place, the authenticity of Paul’s apostolate 
is proved by the fact of his having seen the Lord. The 
Apostle attaches an exceptional importance to this fact, for it 
constitutes a prerogative he shares in common with those 
Apostles with whom his enemies contrast him, those Apostles 
who are at Jerusalem. ‘TI think that I am in nothing less 
than the great apostles” (x1. 5). What! the Apostles of 


44 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Jerusalem claim to be, or are considered, Apostles after 
whom there can be none other (ὑπερλίαν ἀπόστολοι ! 
‘‘They are Hebrews: so am I. ‘They are Israelites: so 
am I. They are the seed of Abraham: 80 81} 1.0. They are 
the ministers of Christ: (I speak as one less wise), I am 
more”’ (xI. 22-3). Then Paul enumerates all the trials of 
his apostolate in the Gentile world, and concludes: “I 
have no way come short of them that are above measure 
apostles: although I be nothing” (xu. 11). Elsewhere 
taking up the defence of Barnabas as well as his own, he 
writes: ‘‘ Have we not the right to take with us a sister, as 
well as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the 
Lord, and Cephas?” (1 Cor. rx. 5). Again (zd. 1-3), in his 
own name: “Am not I free? Am not I an Apostle? 
Have not I seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my work 
in the Lord? And if unto others I be not an apostle, but 
yet to youlam. For you are the seal of my apostleship 
in the Lord. My defence with them that reproach me in 
this.” Here Paul comes back to the proof he has already 
given: the faithful he has converted are a proof that he is 
an apostle; however, this is only an accessory argument, 
since he recalls in the first place that he has seen the 
Lord: ‘‘Am not I an apostle? Have not I seen Christ 
Jesus?” 1 

However, this eloquent self-defence of St. Paul is chiefly 
an answer to the charges of his opponents; so far it does 
not touch the fundamental point, namely, what constitutes 
an apostle. Neither the purity of his doctrine, nor the ac- 
tivity and fruitfulness of his preaching, however miraculous it 
may be, suffice to make his apostolate an office of a higher 
order, distinct in itself, for instance, from the office of Timothy 
or of Apollos. Likewise to have seen Jesus is not the exclu- 
sive privilege of the Apostles, since the risen Lord appeared 
‘“‘on a single occasion to more than five hundred brethren, 

1 Since Paul draws an argument from his having seen Christ, we may 
infer that his opponents urged that the genuine Apostles had seen Christ, 
nay, had lived with Him. Thus the following words of the Epistle to the 
Galatians (11. 6) may be accounted for: “But of them who seemed to 
be something (what they were some time, it is nothing to me, God ac- 


cepteth not the person of man). . .” Werizsicxer, “Das apostolische 
Zeitalter,” p. 52. Liaurroor, “Galat.” p. 108. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 45 


of whom the greater part remain until this present,” but 
whom Paul nowhere calls apostles. 

Tn fact, ‘Can apostle of Christ,’ in the sense in which 
Paul claims the quality for himself, signifies ‘‘a messenger 
of Christ, one sent by Christ,’ just as ‘‘an apostle of the 
Churches” signifies ‘fone who is sent by the Churches”. 
Paul speaks of the ἀπόστολοι Χριστοῦ (2 Cor. ΧΙ. 13), as he 
does of the ἀπόστολοι τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν (id. VII. 23). Since in 
order to be accredited the apostles of the churches have a 
letter from the church that sends them, the ἀπόστολος 
Χριστοῦ could be accredited only by a letter from Christ ; 
but, as that condition cannot be fulfilled, recourse is had to 
something equivalent, and this is why Paul can say to the 
Corinthians : ‘‘ You are my epistle from Christ”. To be sent 
by Christ implies that one has seen Christ, not in the third 
heaven, if one should be rapt thither, but upon earth, and 
just as the witnesses of His resurrection saw Him. ‘This 
is why St. Paul is the last of the Apostles, being the last 
who saw the Lord. After Paul there will be no other 
apostle. Finally, and above all, to be sent by Christ implies 
that one has received upon earth a mission from Christ in 
person; this is the real root of the apostolate. Paul can 
proclaim himself ‘‘an apostle, not of men, neither by man, 
but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him 
from the dead” (Gal. 1. 1), solely because only those are 
Christ’s apostles who are chosen and sent by Christ: 
‘“¢ Tt pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, 
and cailed me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I 
might preach him among the Gentiles ;”’ and forthwith Paul 
started for Arabia: ‘‘ Immediately I condescended not to 
flesh and blood. Neither went I to Jerusalem to the 
apostles who were before me” (id. 16-17). Paul received 
his mission directly from God through Jesus Christ: ‘‘ By 
whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience 
to the faith in all nations for his name”.! It is in this full 
sense that Paul is an apostle: not a mere apostle, but “an 


1Rom. 1. 5: δ οὗ ἐλάβομεν χάριν καὶ ἀποστολήν. Rom. 1. 1 : κλητὸς 
ἀπόστολος. In 2 Cor. v. 20, Paul calls himself Christ’s legate: ὑπὲρ 
Χριστοῦ πρεσβεύομεν (Cf. Eph. vi. 20). In the east, the Emperor’s legate 
was called πρεσβευτής. DEISSMANN, p. 279. 


46 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


apostle of Christ,” personally called and sent by Christ in 


person.1 
oe 

This first conclusion is now made good: Paul is the 
last of the Apostles, because he is the last to whom the 
risen Christ showed Himself: of all the other Apostles Paul 
can say they were Apostles before him. He is “the one 
born out of due time”’; still he belongs to the same family 
as the others (1 Cor. xv. 8). 

Another conclusion which must be looked upon as cer- 
tain is that St. Paul is convinced he has received from God 
the mission to be the Apostle of the Gentile world, whilst 
the other Apostles, the Apostles before him, are sent to the 
circumcised. This is proved most clearly from the well- 
known passage of the epistle to the Galatians (11. 1-14). 

For fourteen years Paul has preached among the pagans, 
in Syria and in Cilicia: during all that time he has remained 
‘unknown to the churches of Judea, which are in Christ’’ 
(1. 22). Acting upon a revelation, he goes to Jerusalem, 
there to explain the Gospel he preaches to the pagans, 
that he may be able to give an assurance that there are not 
two Gospels, and that the purity of his Gospel evinces the 
authenticity of his apostolate. For this object it was quite 
important that he should meet the Apostles of the circum- 
cision and confer with them. This Gospel, he writes, “1 
conferred with those who seemed to be something”’.2 Had 
they disowned Paul, a deadly blow would have been dealt to 
his apostolate, and for those last fourteen years he would 
have “run in vain” (11. 2): which plainly shows that the 
apostolate is not a charism that finds in itself its own justi- 
fication. ‘‘ But,’ Paul goes on, “‘to me they that seemed to 
be something added nothing. Contrariwise, when they 


1 Acts xxi. 21, xxvi. 16-18. 

3.4]. τι. 2: τοῖς δοκοῦσιν. Cf. Gal. τι. 9, of δοκοῦντες στῦλοι εἶναι. 
These men of note, these pillars, are Peter, James and John. This de- 
signation alludes to the exceptional authority ascribed to them by the 
Judaizers. Prat, p.227. There is not even a shadow of depreciation in 
his way of speaking. Liaurroot, in loc., quotes the historian Hero- 
dian (2nd century): τῆς συγκλήτου βουλῆς τοὺς δοκοῦντας Kal ἡλικίᾳ σεμνο- 
τάτους, the members of the Senate, who were held in esteem, and were the 
most venerable for their age. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 47 


had seen that to me was committed the gospel of the uncir- 
cumcision, as to Peter was that of the circumcision: (for 
he who had made Peter the apostle of the circumcision made 
me also the apostle of the Gentiles). And when they had 
recognized the grace that was given to me, James and 
Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, gave to me and 
Barnabas the right hands of fellowship: that we should go 
unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision.”’! 
Hence, as St. Paul sees it, on one side is the apostolate 
to the heathen, entrusted to him and Barnabas; on the other, 
is the apostolate to the circumcised, entrusted to the Apostles 
who have preceded him in the missionary field. Here he 
gives us names: and first of all, James, Peter and John, who 
are considered pillars among those prominent men. Peter 
is an apostle: this quality St. Paul has just ascribed to him.? 
James also is an apostle, according to the testimony of St. 
Paul who, speaking of his first visit to Jerusalem, which took 
place three years after his conversion and fourteen years 
before that mentioned above, writes as follows: “1 went to 
Jerusalem to see Cephas, and I tarried with him fifteen days. 
But other of the apostles I saw none; saving James the 
brother of the Lord.”* The expression used by St. Paul 
makes it quite certain that James is one of the Apostles. 
Let us bear in mind that this James, called ‘‘ the brother of 
the Lord,’ is not the son of Zebedee and brother of St. 
John. Nor perhaps is he the James, son of Alpheus,‘ who, 
together with the son of Zebedee, is of the number of the 
Twelve, chosen by Jesus. At all events, at the time the 
two visits were made by Paul to Jerusalem, this James is, 


Gal. 1. 8-9. Cf. Harnack, ‘‘Die Apostelgeschichte ” (Leipzig, 
1908), p. 15. 

*Gal. 1. 8. Peter is always called Cephas by Paul (Gal. τι. 14; 
1 Cor. 1. 12, m1. 22, rx. 6, xv. 5) except in Gal. τι. 7-8. As to the 
*“pillars’’ see 1 Tim. mr. 15 and Apoc. m1. 12. Cf. “I Clem.” v. 2, 
where Peter and Paul are called of μέγιστοι καὶ δικαιότατοι στύλοι. ΟΥ̓, 
Funx’s note, ‘‘ Patres apostolici,” Vol. I? (Ttibingen, 1901), p. 105. 

3 Gal. τ. 18-19. 

4This is a disputed point. TiLEmont, “ Hist. eccl.” vol. 1. p. 618- 
21. Dom CuHapman, ‘‘The Brethren of the Lord,” in the ‘‘ Journal of 
Theological Studies,” vol. vir. (1906), p. 422. M. Murnerzz, ‘ Der 
Jacobusbrief und sein Verfasser ” (Freiburg, 1905), p. 5. 


48 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


like Peter, a person of the first rank, and owes his preemin- 
ence to the fact that after His resurrection Jesus appeared 
to him individually, as He did to Peter—as we know from 
St. Paul’s testimony in the enumeration of the apparitions: 
ςς After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles ”’ 
Glor. XV. ἢ). 

However, the number of apostles is so far undetermined. 
In all the Pauline Epistles, there is but one passage in 
which St. Paul speaks of the Twelve: ‘‘He was seen by 
Cephas, and after that by the twelve” (1 Cor. xv. 5). This 
passage, the critical value of which there is no reason to call 
in doubt, would suffice to prove that, for St. Paul, ‘the 
Twelve” is a number consecrated by the current tradition, 
the more so that, strictly speaking, Paul ought to have said 
here ‘‘ the Eleven,” instead of ‘‘the Twelve’: in fact, the 
Vulgate has translated here δώδεκα by wndecim. 

In St. John’s Gospel the Twelve are referred to as form- 
ing the group of disciples of Jesus who are most faith- 
fully attached to Him. St. John does not tell us of their 
collective calling and choice, nor give their twelve names: 
indeed, he never gives them the name of apostles.1 Still, 
St. John testifies that Jesus chose them: ‘‘ Have not I 
chosen you twelve? and one of you is a devil. Now he 
meant Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon: for this same was 
about to betray him, he who was one of the twelve” (John 
vi. 70-1). Again he mentions St. Thomas: ‘‘ Now Thomas, 
one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them 
when Jesus came’”’ (xx. 24). It is not expressly stated that 
at the last supper Jesus had the Twelve near Him; but Peter, 
Thomas, Philip, Jude, Judas and the beloved disciple are 
mentioned as béing present. Besides, the discourse after the 
supper is unquestionably a kind of investiture and glorification 
of the T'welve—‘“‘ You have not chosen me: but I have chosen 


1JIn Apoc. xxi. 14, mention is made of the city and of its wall with 
twelve foundations, on which the “twelve names of the twelve apostles 
of the Lamb” are inscribed. Cf. also Apoc. xvi. 20, where the Saints, 
the Apostles and the Prophets are reckoned among the blessed inhabi- 
tants of Heaven. In Apoc. τί. 2, the church of Ephesus is congratu- 
lated on having “tried them who say they are apostles”. St. John does 
not seem to have had in his mind other Apostles than the Twelve. In the 
Johannine Epistles, the Apostles are not mentioned at all. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 49 


you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should 
bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain”’. Then, ad- 
dressing His Father He says: ‘‘ While I was with them, I 
kept them in thyname. Those whom Thou gavest me have 
I kept: and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition” 
(xvu. 12). ‘‘As Thou hast sent Me (ἀπέστειλας) into the 
world, I also have sent (ἀπέστειλα) them into the world” 
(xvi. 18). 

According to some, this discourse refers, not to the 
Twelve, but to the disciples in the broader sense of the 
word, and is addressed to all the believers of subsequent ages ; 
and the conclusion is drawn that the idea of an Apostolic 
College is altogether foreign to the fourth Gospel. We be- 
lieve, on the contrary, that all the features we have just 
noticed refer directly to the Twelve, the Twelve whom Jesus 
chose, whom He established, among whom Judas alone was 
unfaithful, whom He Himself sent in His name into the 
world. The idea of apostolate (the term itself all but 
appears) is here substantially the same as in St. Paul, with 
the difference, however, that it applies, apparently, only to 
the Twelve. As to the believers, they are in the back- 
ground, and appear only under the shadow of the Twelve, 
whose converts they are: ‘‘ Not for them only do I pray, 
but for them also who through their word shall believe in 
me” (XVII. 20). 

In St. Mark’s Gospel, the Twelve alone are mentioned. 
The Twelve are called Apostles only once, on their return 
from the mission entrusted to them by Jesus during the 
Galilean ministry: ‘‘ Then he called the twelve, and began 
to send (ἀποστέλλειν) them two and two...” (vI. 7). 
They come back to the Master: ‘The apostles (ἀπόστολοι) 
returning to Jesus, related to Him all things that they had 
done and taught” (v1. 30). However, it seems possible 
that in this passage—the only one of its kind—the word 
ἀπόστολος has no other meaning than that of the verb 
ἀποστέλλειν. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, mention is made 
only of the Twelve, the “ twelve disciples ”’. 

It is conceded that this constant agreement of the testi- 
monies which speak of the Twelve, makes it certain that 
Jesus Himself really chose twelve disciples, in view of the 


50 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


preaching of the Gospel, even as early as the Galilean 
ministry. But it is claimed that the idea of the apostolate 
underwent a process of transformation, in three successive 
stages: a primitive idea, a Pauline idea, and a Catholic idea. 
This view deserves a careful examination. 

* * 

It is certain that Jesus chose twelve of His disciples and 
associated them by a very special tie with His person and 
work. ‘They are His witnesses, and this is why, on the day 
of judgment, they, the Twelve, are to sit on twelve seats, and 
judge the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. xix. 28), to which 
they will have announced the Gospel of Christ. Is there a 
real connexion between that number—twelve—of the dis- 
ciples who were especially chosen, and the number of the 
tribes, as though Jesus had wished to restrict to Israel the 
new missionary work? ‘This is a question to be considered 
later on: we need only say here, that at the beginning a 
special importance was attached to the number twelve, an 
importance which afterwards passed out of notice. 

Tt is a fact, that in the first days of Christianity, twelve 
is a number which the eleven are anxious to preserve. 
Of the disciples who have accompanied the Twelve all the 
time the Lord Jesus lived with them, from His baptism at 
the hands of John to His ascension into heaven, one is to be 
chosen, to be ‘‘a witness of His resurrection’ (Acts 1. 21-2). 
By these words the Twelve are defined: they are the wit- 
nesses of the resurrection of Jesus, after having been the 
companions of His public ministry. However, the definition 
is not yet complete. One feature remains to be added. The 
Twelve have been chosen by the Saviour Himself. Is the 
twelfth, who is to be elected instead of Judas, to be the 
choice of the Saviour also? The narrative of the Acts gives 
us theanswer: ‘‘ They presented two, Joseph, called Barsabas, 
who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And praying 
they said: Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, 
shew whether of these two Thou hast chosen, to take 
the place of the ministry and apostleship, from which Judas 


1 Wurzsicker, p. 584. P. Werte, ‘‘ Die Anfange unserer Religion” 
(Tiibingen, 1901), p. 71. Haxrnack, “ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 268. Losy, 
** Kvangiles synoptiques ”’ (Ceffonds, 1907), vol. 1. p. 208-9. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 51 


hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own 
place. And they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon 
Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.” ! 
Matthias received no imposition of hands: he is chosen by 
Jesus Himself, whose choice is held to be manifested by the 
drawing of lots. 

An exceptional authority remained in the hands of the 
Twelve, who abode at Jerusalem, in the beginning at least 
and for several years—twelve years, later tradition will say. 
Weizsicker, who has studied their position with great 
care and minuteness, observes, first, that the Twelve seem 
to have exercised the right of supervision not only over the 
Jerusalem community, but over all the communities in 
general, and secondly that the Twelve appear, not as a 
college or as a corporation, but as individuals.” 

At the same time, missionaries go out from the company 
of the Twelve to announce the Gospel to the world. ‘The 
seven elected to help the Twelve (Acts v. 1-6) are Hellenist 
Jews, and no longer ‘“‘ Hebrews,” lke the Twelve: Stephen, 
one of the seven, dies before becoming a missionary, but 
Philip does become one, and is called ‘‘an evangelist”’.’ 
As to Barnabas and Paul, who are ‘‘ Hebrews,” they will be 
called Apostles, and will be missionaries. Paul’s apostolate 
was certainly called in question by Judaizers who found 
some support at Jerusalem: yet, the same men did not 
question the apostolate of Barnabas: they questioned Paul’s 
right to the quality of an Apostle, yet did not reproach him 
for not being one of the Twelve. Hence they conceived the 
idea of the apostolate just as he did himself, since the 
dispute did not turn on the idea itself, but on the right of 


1 Acts 1. 23-6: ἀνάδειξον ὃν ἐξελέξω. . . λαβεῖν τὸν τόπον τῆς διακονίας 
ταύτης καὶ ἀποστολῆς. Notice the use of the word τόπος. Compare that 
of the word χάρις in Gal. τι. 9. As to the meaning of the word διακονία, 
see below, p. 99. 

2 WeiIzsACKER, p. 585. 

3 Later on, the term “ evangelist”? was applied to the authors of the 
Gospels. But, in its original meaning, it designated a missionary who was 
not an Apostle. See Eph. tv. 11, and 2 Tim. rv. 5. This word is found 
neither in the ‘‘ Didache,” nor in the Apostolic Fathers. In the second 
century, however, Panteenus, who had preached in the Indies, is still 
called ‘fan evangelist”. Husxs. ‘ Le HK.” v. 10, 2 and 3. 


52 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


St. Paul to claim it for himself. We conclude, then, that 
the apostolate of the T'welve is not opposed to the apostolate 
of Paul, as an antithesis of which the two terms exclude 
each other. There are the Apostles, ‘‘all the apostles” 
(1 Cor. xv. 7), who receive their mission from the risen 
Christ, and of these Paul is the last: there are also the 
Twelve (1 Cor. xv. 5), who are of the number of “all 
the apostles,” but who were the subjects of a previous 
choice made by Jesus during His ministry, and for a pur- 
pose which was at first co-ordinated exclusively with that 
ministry. 

What is called the ‘‘Catholic” idea of the apostolate 
resulted, according to the scholars already mentioned, from 
the oblivion into which the memory of all apostles other 
than the T'welve eventually fell, these latter coming to be 
looked upon as exclusively the founders of the Church. It 
is true that at a very early date, the Twelve only are 
spoken of: the Apocalypse, for instance, reckons only ‘‘the 
twelve apostles of the Lamb” (xx. 14). The title chosen 
by the Didaché is: ‘The Lord’s teaching through the 
twelve Apostles to the Nations”. The expression “the 
twelve Apostles” is a synthetic expression rather than a 
strict enumeration: writers speak of ‘‘the Twelve,” without 
on that account excluding from the apostolate Paul and 
Barnabas,! and regardless of the fact that the ‘‘‘T'welve”’ 
were actually fourteen. Again, in the same sense it was 
possible to say that the Twelve had preached the Gospel 
to all nations, which was true to some extent only; but 
by a simplification that is not unprecedented, and still less 
untruthful, the Twelve have been credited with a work of 
preaching which has in fact been the collective work of 
apostles whose number was perhaps far greater. We may 
remember the calling of the seventy-two disciples, in St. 
Luke (x. 1-17). 

che ue 
* 

At all events, whether we think of the T'welve, as they 
must have been thought of in some primitive circles of 
Judaizing tendency, with some sort of implicit reference to 


1 Barnas. ‘ Epistula,” v. 9 and vim. 3. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 53 


the twelve tribes;! or of the ‘‘ Apostles of Christ,” as St. 
Paul preferred to say, with reference to “all the apostles,” the 
Twelve included ; or of the ‘‘ Twelve Apostles,” as Christians 
said later on, by way of synthesis, we find ourselves face to 
face, in early Christianity, with a rallying-centre, a principle 
of unity and authority,? a principle laid down by Jesus 
Himself. 

Visible communities can be ruled only by a living 
authority: a written or traditional law is sure to give rise to 
controversies, discords, separations.® 

In these first years of Christianity, when everything is 
oral, the ‘“‘apostles of Christ” are, as it were, the authentic 
word, the word which justifies faith: the teaching of Jesus, 
and therefore His person, have for guarantee the testimony 
of the apostle. Even though the Christians of Corinth 
might have “‘ten thousand instructors in Christ,” they have 
but one Apostle, who has begotten them in Jesus Christ 
through the Gospel (1 Cor. 1v. 15). Timothy will go to 
Corinth to remind the Corinthians of the way in which Paul 
“teaches in every church” (id. 17). ‘“‘ If any seem to be a 
prophet or rich in spiritual gifts, let him know the things 
that I write to you, that they are the commandments of 
the Lord” (1 Cor. x1v. 87). ‘If I come again, I will not 
spare, since you seek a proof that Christ speaketh in me.’’* 
Does this look like a religion of private judgment ? 

The Apostles have, during their lifetime and whilst 
founding the Churches, an authority which, in so far as 
they attest the word of the Lord, can be best compared with 
the authority of Holy Writ; an authority which in so far 


1“ Kvangel. Ebionit.” (Nesriz, “N.T. Supplem.” p. 175). HeEn- 
NECKE, ‘‘ Neutestamentliche Apokryphen ” (1904), p. 27. 

3 WEIZSACKER, pp. 588-90, 597 brings out this view most clearly, 
whilst Harnacx, on the contrary, ‘‘ Dogmengeschichte,” vol. 1. p. 94, 
sets itaside. F. Loors, “ Leitfaden zum Studium der Dogmengeschichte ” 
(Halle, 1906), pp. 72, 78, deals more fairly with the question. 

5 Harnack, ‘‘Dogmengeschichte,” vol. 1. p. 380: “A living com- 
munity cannot be ruled by an oral tradition and written word, but only 
by persons ; for the letter will always separate and split up”. Harnack, 
who makes this concession for the time of St. Cyprian, ought a fortiori to 
make it for the first Christian generation, when the N.T. was still in fieri. 

*2 Cor. xi. 2-3. Cf. 1 Cor. v. 4-5. 


54 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


as it attaches to the counsels or lights they give on their 
own inspiration, can be likened to that of the Lord by 
Whom they are sent. ‘‘If any man seem to be contentious, 
we have no such custom, nor the churches of God” (1 Cor. 
ΧΙ. 16). In expressing himself thus, St. Paul gives consist- 
ency to a principle of authority which is evidently received 
in all the Christian communities, even in those of which he 
has not been the first Apostle—the Church of Rome, for in- 
stance (Rom. v1.17). There resides in the hands of the 
Apostles an authority without which the genesis of the New 
Testament cannot be accounted for;! and which alone ex- 
plains the idea of deposit of faith, of rule of faith, of tradition, 
of magisterium, of hierarchy. 

Judging merely from what we have seen so far, do we 
not recognize, in the texts and facts of the Apostolic age, 
the historical part played by the apostolate, a part which, 
under the influence of a subconscious prejudice, most con- 
temporary critics seem to agree in minimizing? These 
allow, with M. Sohm,? that the Christian community-organiza- 
tion is what they call a primitive creation of the Christian 
spirit, yet contend that the formation of this community- 
system had its centre in every local Church, in the episcopate, 
first plural soon monarchical, which imparted a constitution 
to every Christian community. These statutory and juridical 
forms of the first Christian communities are, however, in 
their eyes, merely exterior and disciplinary: they control the 
conduct and government of the community, they are super- 
imposed, as it were, from without, they have a political 
character in the broad sense, or, to speak more simply, a 
practical character. The plural episcopate thus represented 
becomes a kind of spontaneous association for worship! 
On the other hand, faith and teaching—so we are told—were 
founded on the charism, on the gift of the Spirit, and are 


‘This is well shown by Jitrcumr, ‘‘ Hinleitung in das N.'T.” (Leipzig, 
1894), pp. 283-6. 

Ὁ“ Kirchenrecht,” pp.4-15. Likewise Hatcn, “ Organization,” pp. 32, 
foll. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 376, says far more truly: ‘‘ Any 
estimate of the origin of the Church’s organization must be based upon the 
Apostles and their missionary labours”. And yet, some fifteen lines be- 
low, the same historian denounces what he calls ‘‘the magical conception 
of the apostolate ”’, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 55 


in no way connected with administration, until the day 
when, charisms having ceased, the function of teaching be- 
comes identified with that of ruling and both are placed in 
the hands of the bishop. All this historical reconstruction 
might have some verisimilitude, were it not for the fact that 
the earliest Christian generation was both taught and ruled 
by the apostolate. 


ΤΙ: 


The Jews were the sons of Abraham ; of all nations, they 
were the nation chosen by God, they were the elect and 
holy race, the Lord’s inheritance. The Lord had done for 
Israel what He had done for no other people: with her He 
had made a covenant; to her He had given a holy Law; in 
her behalf He had wrought many wonders through the 
course of ages. Now Christianity takes the place of Israel, 
and, in the order of faith, it too has become a people, ‘‘a 
chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a 
people purchased by God”! There is, by God’s choice, the 
substitution of one people for another; and the historical 
novelty consists in the formation of this new people, whose 
unity is both visible like that of Judaism, and at the same 
time spiritual, unlike that of carnal Judaism. 

Here we discern, in its native state, no longer the 
principle of authority which we have recognized in the 
apostolate, but the idea and the reality of a society, which 
is at once visible and invisible, taking the place of the idea 
and the reality of a people interrelated by flesh and blood. 

In its beginnings Christianity did not separate from 
Judaism ex abrupto. The Christianity preached to the 
Jews could hardly escape being Jewish in observance and 
in spirit, because of the tenacity of the Jewish faith, and 
of its religious attachment to the Law: the greatest peril 
to which the Gospel was exposed was the risk of being re- 
absorbed by Judaism. But Divine Providence averted this. 
We remember how, after the death of St. Stephen, be- 
cause of the persecution raised against them, the disciples 
dispersed, and how the Gospel was thus carried into 


11 Pet. 1,9: an allusion to Exod. ΧΙΧ. 5-6. 


56 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch: the disciples ‘‘spoke the word 
to none, but to the Jews only” (Acts x1. 19). However, 
some were found—and these were of Cyrene and of Cyprus 
—who, “‘ when they were come to Antioch, spoke also to 
the Greeks, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the 
Lord was with them, and a great number believing was 
converted to the Lord’’. Barnabas was sent from Jerusalem 
to Antioch that he might work in the new missionary field, 
where he was joined, towards the year 42, by Paul who 
came from Tarsus: ‘‘they conversed there in the church a 
whole year; and they taught a great multitude, so that at 
Antioch the disciples were first named Christians ’”’.! 

This name did not originate with the faithful themselves, 
who called one another only “disciples” or “‘ brethren”’. 
It is really remarkable that, for a long time, they did not 
adopt the name “‘Christians”’: it is only found twice in the 
New Testament, and in both passages it is put on the lips 
of pagans who of course do not share in the belief of the 
faithful.2 The name was coined by the Greeks, to designate 
a class of people who, evidently, could be styled Jews no 
longer, and it indicates the special feature in these non-Jews, 
which was known to be the most characteristic of their sect, 
their faith in Christ, their faith in Jesus recognized as the 
Messias. 

We must also observe in this passage of the Acts that, 


1 Acts x1. 20-6. The Jews had at first called the disciples of Jesus 
‘* Nazarenes,” ‘‘ Galileans,” and perhaps too, the ‘‘ poor” (Ebionim), a 
name suggested by some words of Jesus. Epictetus and the Emperor 
Julian use the term ‘‘ Galileans ”. Even as late as the fourth century, 
the Jews made use of the term Nazarenes. Jesus gave the name of 
‘* disciples” to His followers, and it is most strange that that name was 
strictly applied only to the immediate disciples of Jesus. The three 
appellatives adopted by the Christians were ‘‘ saints,’’ ‘‘ brethren ” and 
“church”. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 334-339. 

21 Pet. 1v. 16 and Acts xxvi. 28, besides Acts x1. 26. We may 
recall the texts of Tacitus and of Pliny. St. Ignatius of Antioch was the 
first Christian author who used the word χριστιανός, and he was the first 
author who ever used the word χριστιανισμός. The word χριστιανός is 
of Latin origin: cf. ἡρωδιανοί (Mark m1. 6) and καισαριανοί (DEISSMANN, 
Ῥ. 276). Harwnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 345, note 1, suggests that the 
word χριστιανός was probably coined by the Roman magistrates of Anti- 
och. Atallevents, the Jews would not have called the faithful χριστιανοί 
i.e. ‘‘ followers of the Messias ”. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 57 


when those disciples of Cyprus and Cyrene had preached the 
Lord Jesus to the Greeks of Antioch, and the number of the 
Greeks who turn to the Lord had become great, the rumour 
of these events comes ‘‘to the ears of the church which was 
at Jerusalem,” and from Jerusalem, Barnabas is sent to 
Antioch. Thus the church of Jerusalem does not intend to 
leave to itself and without an apostle the new and unexpected 
community. Barnabas, an apostle of the church of Jeru- 
salem, takes Paul with him, and introduces him to the 
Antiochene mission. 

In another passage of the Acts (x1. 1-2), we find a list 
of those who seem to have been then the pillars of that Chris- 
tian community of Antioch: first Barnabas; Paul, the last; 
between them, a Simeon, a Manahen, two Jewish names; 
and a Christian of Cyrene, named Lucius. ‘The success of 
their common missionary-work tends to expand. Hence 
Barnabas is to depart, with Paul for his companion: first 
they are to go to Cyprus, then they are to bring the Gospel 
to Antioch of Pisidia, to Iconium, Lystra,and Derbe. After 
this apostolic expedition, which lasts four or five years (about 
45 to 49), Barnabas and Paul return to Antioch, where 
‘having assembled the church, they relate what great things 
God had done for them, and how He had opened the door of 
faith to the Gentiles. And they abide no small time with 
the disciples at Antioch” (Acts xI. v. 26-7). 

The sending of Barnabas and Paul to Cyprus, Lyca- 
onia, and Pisidia, as well as their missionary work in those 
places, was assuredly prompted and inspired by the same 
principle that gave birth to the Christian community of 
Antioch: that is, the admittance of the uncircumcised to the 
faith and—to speak still more accurately—to the faith unac- 
companied by any observance of the Jewish Law. On this 
principle of preaching the Gospel to the Greeks Barna- 
bas and Paul agree. It is not likely that the Church of 
Jerusalem, of which Barnabas was the apostle, did not 
know what the “‘Gospel” of Paul was; nor is it possible 
that, on such an essential point, there was disagreement 
between Barnabas and Paul. Hence the Christianity of 
the uncircumcised did not expand more or less surreptitiously, 
but with the knowledge of the Church of Jerusalem, and 


58 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


with its encouragement,! and through the agency of one of 
its own apostles, Barnabas. ‘These inferences the sequel of 
events will confirm. 

Suddenly there was a crisis. Some, ‘‘coming down 
from Judea,” arrived at Antioch, and, like Eleazar in the 
story of the king of Adiabene, began to say to these Greeks 
who had become Christians: ‘‘ Except you be circumcised 
according to the Law of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 
xv. 2). Great indeed must have been the authority of those 
men “coming from Judea,’ who appealed more or less 
legitimately to the ‘‘ pillars”? of Jerusalem ; for their unex- 
pected declarations deeply disturbed the Christian community 
of Antioch, nor did all the credit of Barnabas and Paul suf- 
fice to counter-balance their influence. ‘‘ When Paul and 
Barnabas had no small contest with them, it was determined 
that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of their side, 
should go up to the apostles and elders to Jerusalem, about 
this question” (Acts xv. 2). It was indeed a most solemn 
and momentous question, for it was no less than that of 
deciding if Christianity was to become a mere extension of 
Judaism, a proselytizing movement ending in circumcision, 
or the rise of a new people? 

Paul and Barnabas left for Jerusalem, accompanied by 
Titus: this was probably about the year 50, some twenty 
years after the Saviour’s Passion.? 

St. Paul has recorded these incidents in the Epistle to 
the Galatians. He was induced by a revelation, he says, to 
go up to Jerusalem, there to explain to those of Jerusalem 
the Gospel he was preaching to the Gentiles. We may 
see in these words a sign that Paul joined of his own ac- 
cord Barnabas and those who were sent to Jerusalem by the 
Antiochian community: he intended to defend his Gospel 
himself. Does faith in Christ suffice to justify of itself 


ΤΟΥ Gal. 1. 21-4. The antimontanistic writer, Apollonius (about 
197), relates that the Saviour had told the Apostles to wait twelve years 
before leaving Jerusalem. ΕΒ. “H. HE.” v. 18, 14. The same episode 
was also found in the Κήρυγμα Πέτρου, from which Apollonius may have 
borrowed his narrative. Dosscutirz, ‘‘Das Kerygma Petri” (Leipzig, 
1893), p. 22. 

* Acts xv, 4-29. Cf. Gal. 11. 2-10. For the discussion of the various 
problems that relabe to the “ council of Jerusalem” see Prat, pp. 69-80. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 59 


alone, without the observance of the Law? ‘This was the 
whole guestion. And, Paul goes on, ‘‘ Titus, who went 
with me, being a Greek, was not compelled to be circum- 
cised. And this because of false brethren unawares brought 
in, who came in privately to spy our liberty, which we have 
in Curist JEsus, that they might bring us into servitude. 
To whom we yielded not by subjection, no not for an hour, 
that the truth of the gospel might continue with you” 
(Gal. π. 3-5). 

The minority, whom Paul styles “‘false brethren”’ is 
an anonymous group, which appears here for the first time 
in the history of the infant Church. In reality it belongs 
to Jerusalem ; but the influence of its members is far-reach- 
ing, since it caused a crisis in Antioch, and later on rendered 
necessary St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. Paul calls 
these people ‘‘false brethren, brought in unawares”; and 
thereby casts a ray of light on the history of the Church of 
Jerusalem, a history otherwise so obscure from the time 
of Herod Agrippa’s persecution, when Peter is thrown into 
prison and James beheaded (Acts xu. 1-24). Apparently 
since then some members had been added to the Jerusalem 
community who formed in its bosom a new element, mem- 
bers who had come from Pharisaism and remained strongly 
attached to the Law. They are diametrically opposed to 
St. Paul, who, likewise a convert from Pharisaism, preaches 
the abrogation of the Law through faith. That he 
styles them false brethren should cause no wonder: in his 
eyes, they have come into the Church, to spy her out and be- 
tray her; they have taken the best means they could devise 
to check and suppress the preaching of the Gospel to the 
Gentiles, by their appeal to the mother Church, that of 
Jerusalem. ‘‘It is manifest that the men of this party had 
only just joined the Church. It is impossible that they can 
have belonged to it at any time during the period in which 
the Jewish Churches looked with satisfaction on Paul's 
work in Syria, Cyprus and Cilicia. And it is also manifest 
that they joined with the fixed intention never, even as 
Christians, to abandon any part of the Law. ‘The char- 
acter of the mother Church was thus completely changed.” ? 


1 WrIzsAcKER, p. 154. 


00 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


But the “pillars,” that is James, Peter, and John, to 
whom Paul has privately explained his Gospel, “they who 
are held to be something,” as he says of them, decided that 
nothing should be imposed on the uncircumcised converts. 
The Zealots of the Jewish party would have been content 
with the circumcision of Titus: not even that single con- 
cession is made to them, out of respect for the principle up- 
held by Paul. ‘‘ We did not consent to yield to them, no 
not for an hour.”’! James, Cephas, and John “ gave Bar- 
nabas and me the right hands of fellowship, that we should 
go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision” 
(Gal. 11. 9). 

These last words reveal a dualism destined to last for 
many years, on one side the ecclesia ex Judwis and on the 
other the ecclesia ex gentibus. However, we cannot include 
in the former that anonymous minority which had vainly 
endeavoured, at Jerusalem, to force on the Gentile converts 
circumcision and, along with it, the whole Law. This 
latter element is of Pharisaic origin? and spirit; it will 
continue in the mother Church for a while, then disappear, 
either by returning to Judaism or merging in the Judeo- 
Christian churches. On the other hand, the true ecclesia 
ex Judeis consists of Christians of Jewish race, who after 
embracing Christianity continue to observe the Law, but 
without imposing it on the pagans who submit to the 
Gospel, or ceasing on that account to maintain friendly 
relations with them. This is the sentiment expressed 
and upheld by St. James in the narrative of the Acts. 
James advocates a compromise, which consists in getting 
the uncircumcised Christians to accept the obligations 
imposed in Leviticus on the foreigners who have settled 
in Israel: namely to abstain from things offered to idols, 
from what is strangled, from blood, from fornication. 
This compromise has for its purpose to solve the practical 


"Gal. τι. 5: οἷς οὐδὲ πρὸς ὥραν εἴξαμεν τῇ ὑποταγῇ. This we desig- 
nates Paul and Barnabas. For the justification of the reading οἷς οὐδὲ 
(two words that are missing in the so-called Western texts), see Liagut- 
roor’s note in “Galat.” in loco. and Zann, “Ποῖ Brief des Paulus an die 
Galater ausgelegt ” (Leipzig, 1905), p. 88. 

2 Acts xv. 5. 8. Acts xv. 12-21. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 61 


difficulty of bringing together into one and the same Chris- 
tian community both those who are Jews and those who 
are not Jews, Jews who believe in the enduring character 
of the Law, and non-Jews who believe that the Law has 
been abrogated. That it was a real difficulty was soon to 
be revealed only too clearly by the conflict between Peter and 
Paul at Antioch. The ecclesia ex gentibus, on the contrary, 
was formed of non-Jewish Christians, in whose estimation 
the Law had come to an end, as may an institution which, 
although truly divine, is, by the divine intention itself, meant 
to last only for a time. Man is justified by faith in Jesus 
Christ, not by the observances or works of the Law. Hence, 
in Jesus “neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncir- 
cumcision, but to be a new creature is everything. Peace 
and mercy upon all who shall follow this rule, and upon the 
Israel of God.”2 This which is the argument of the 
Epistle Paul sent to the Galatians some six or seven years 
later, was, long before that Epistle, one of the fundamental 
principles of St. Paul’s Gospel. 

However, we must not call this ‘‘Paulinism,” for the 
principle involved was held by St. Peter as well as by St. 
Paul. 

As a matter of fact, Peter went to Antioch, and there 
“before that some came from James, he did eat with the 
(converted] Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew 
and separated himself, fearing them who were of the cir- 
cumcision. . . .” 

The schism was there? ‘As to me,” Paul says, “‘ when 
I saw that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the 
gospel, I said to Cephas before them all: If thou, being a 
Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as the 
Jews do, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to live as do 


1The reader may observe that the decree of the “ Council of Jeru- 
salem ” (Acts xv. 23-9) regarding forbidden food has left no trace at all 
either in ecclesiastical customs or in ecclesiastical writings, as though it 
had never been applied. At some time or other the text itself was altered 
that it might be harmonized with ecclesiastical practice. G. Rescu, 
‘Das Aposteldekret” (Leipzig, 1905), p. 151 and foll. H. CoppietERs, 
“7,8 décret des apdtres ” (Revue biblique, 1907), p. 55 foll. 

2Gal. vi. 15,16. Cf.1 Cor. vi. 19. 

3 WeizsicKER, p. 159. 


62 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the Jews? We’—1i.e. Peter and Paul and likewise Barnabas, 
and ‘‘ the other Jews,” converted at Antioch—“‘ we by nature 
are Jews, and not sinners from among the Gentiles. But 
knowing that man is not justified by the works of the law, 
but by the faith of JEsus CHRIST; we also believe in CHRIST 
JESUS, that we may be justified by the faith of Christ, and 
not by the works of the law.” 1 Hence, according to Paul’s 
testimony, Peter is prepared to live after the fashion of the 
Gentiles, and to give up the obligations of the Law: a Jew 
by birth, he professes, like Paul, that faith in Christ suffices 
for justification. Paul reminds him of it, so as to convince 
him that his present conduct is simply.a contradiction ; and 
although no word is said to that effect in Paul’s narrative, we 
cannot doubt that Peter came back immediately to ‘ the 
truth of the Gospel”’. 

The principle which Paul calls ‘‘ the truth of the Gospel,” 
not of his Gospel, but of the Gospel in itself: the principle 
that man is justified by faith in Christ, and that the observ- 
ances and works of the Law henceforth count for nothing 
—is one which, as was acknowledged quite plainly by the 
“Council” of Jerusalem, applies to the Gentile converts; 
but it applies equally well to the converts from Judaism, 
and in this respect the Council of Jerusalem implied more 
than it expressed.? Paul is determined that this truth of the 
Gospel shall be fully brought out so that there may be 
neither speculative equivocation nor practical hesitation. 
Theoretically, Peter agrees with Paul ; practically, he becomes 
inconsistent by hesitating to give up the observance of the 
Law: ‘“‘Conversationis fuit vitium, non praedicationis,” 


1 Gal. τι. 12-16. Prat, p. 229: ‘‘ With all ancient ecclesiastical writers 
and many modern interpreters we admit that the whole passage [vv. 15-21] 
belongs to the discourse addressed by St. Paul to St. Peter before the 
faithful of Antioch. The beginning (Nos natura Judaei, etc.) is certainly 
addressed to St. Peter, not to the Galatians: and there is no reason, no 
indication whatever, that justifies us in maintaining that the interlocutors 
change in what follows.” Besides, I believe that the passage Nos natura 
Judaci, ete. is addressed not only to Peter, but likewise to the Jewish con- 
verts of Antioch, designated in vv. 13-14: ‘‘ To his (Cephas) dissimula- 
tion the rest of the Jews consented, so that Barnabas also was led by them 
into that dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not pou 
unto the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas before them all. 

? WEIZSAcKER, p. 168. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 63 


says Tertullian of Peter’s conduct.1 A self-contradiction, 
we should say; a piece of hypocrisy, says St. Paul, some- 
what angrily,” in terms that recall the severe words of Jesus 
against the Pharisees; a fault on the part of Peter, on the 
part of the Jews of Antioch who follow his example, and like- 
wise on the part of Barnabas; a fault prompted by the fear 
of ‘those of the circumcision”. This amounts to saying 
that so far the Jewish converts of Antioch had practised a 
Christianity that was openly and completely free from any 
Jewish observance. 

“They of the circumcision” who have just overawed 
Peter, will go still further and declare that in giving up the 
works of the Law, and associating freely with the Gentiles, 
a Jew like Paul is ‘“‘a sinner from among the Gentiles, a 
prevaricator”’. And Paul is glad to see them so confidently 
push their arguments to the logical conclusion. There- 
fore one must choose, says Paul: either the Law, or 
Christ, for Christ suffices. ‘‘I live, now not I; but Christ 
liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh, I live in 
the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered 
himself for me. . . . If justice be by the Law, then Christ 
died in vain” (Gal. 11. 20-21). He who uses this language 
is not a Greek converted to the Gospel, but a convert from 
Pharisaism ; it is Paul, and what he says here, he says in 
Peter’s name too. The discourse which Paul addresses here 
to Peter is not a thesis which he proves from the Bible, but 
an appeal to the latter’s religion: an appeal which reveals 
the deepest motives of the faith of the two great Apostles, 
the faith which from the time of their first interview bound 
them together for ever. ‘‘ Paul was a Jew by birth as well 
as Peter. Both were convinced that they belonged to the 
privileged people of God, and were separated from the Gen- 
tiles by the Law which regarded them as just and the Gen- 
tiles as sinners. And yet both had come to believe that 


1“ De Praeser.” 23. 

5 64]. 1.13: συνυπεκρίθησαν αὐτῷ [Peter] καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ ἰουδαῖοι [the 
Antiochian Jews], ὥστε καὶ Βαρνάβας συναπήχθη αὐτῶν τῇ ὑποκρίσει. We 
may recall that the word “‘ hypocrite” is used in the Gospel, to designate 
the Pharisees, Matt. νι. 2, 5, 16, etc.; Luke, vi. 42 and x. 11,56. Cf. 
“ Didaché,”’ vir. 1 and 2. 


64 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


their Law did not justify them before God, and that there 
was only one way to justification, namely, faith in Christ, 
which faith freed them from the obligation of the Law.” 
Faith, then, takes the place of the Law, and establishes a 
vital union between all those in whom, through faith, Christ 
is hving. -Peter’s practical hesitation at Antioch raises the 
question of the unity of the Church: Paul’s decision solves 
the question in the sense of a unity, based not on con- 
descension or political sagacity, but directly and solely on 
faith in Christ and His supernatural life in us.? 

* * 

* 

Christianity does not spread like the philosophy of a 
school nor lke a “wisdom” after the fashion in which 
Judaism recruited its proselytes among the Greeks.? Un- 
doubtedly it is a theodicy and a code of ethics: it proclaims 
the unity of God and repudiates idolatry altogether. The 
day is gone by for dumb idols (1 Cor. x1r. 2) and for a polythe- 
ism which is after all mere atheism (1 Thess. Iv. 5). But 
Christianity 15 above all a «catechesis ” that takes the form 
of articles of faith and of precepts of authority. 

‘“We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and 
that there is no God, but one. For although there be 
many that are called gods, yet to us there is but one 
God, the Father” (1 Cor. vit. 4-6), «the living and true 
God”’ (1 Thess. 1. 9). Likewise pagan corruption must 
come to an end: ‘Do not err: neither fornicators, 
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers 
with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor 
railers, nor extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God. 
And such some of you were: but you are washed, but 
you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our 
Lord Jesus Curist, and the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. v1. 
9-11). These are so many principles of theodicy and of 
ethics, which, in our logic, are the premises of faith; but a 
missionary like Paul, even when preaching ina city like 


1 WEIZSACKER, p. 160-1, who demonstrates very well the community 
of faith between the two great Apostles. 

* This does not mean of course that St. Paul’s Epistles do not con- 
tain the fundamental principles of theodicy and of ethics. Rom. 1. 20-32 ; 
τι. 14-16. - 


THE INFANT CHURCH 65 


Corinth, does not think of proving them first by means of 
reason, nor are his converts reluctant to receive them merely 
on his word. Paul teaches what he has learned; and what 
he tells them his converts must preserve just as they have 
been taught. The idea of the deposit of faith is active here. 

(ΝΟΥ I make known unto you, brethren, the gospel 
which I preached to you, which also you have received, and 
wherein you stand; by which also you are saved, if you hold 
it fast after what manner I preached it unto you” (1 Cor. 
xv. 1, 2). The whole of that Gospel may be reduced, in a 
sense, to one dogmatic fact: ‘‘ Before all I delivered unto you 
that which I also received: how that Christ died for our 
sins according to the scriptures”. Jesus is the Messias, 
His death is our redemption: this had been announced by 
the Jewish Scriptures. But Christ, who was dead, also 
‘rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and 
he was seen by Cephas, and after that by the Twelve... . 
Last of all, he was seen also by me” (id. 4-7). The 
Scriptures which announced Christ are our first motive 
of credibility. The testimony of the Apostles who saw the 
risen Christ is another motive. ‘‘For both the Jews 
require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. But we 
preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling- 
block, and unto the Gentiles, foolishness, but unto them 
that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power 
of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1. 22-4). 


“Tf then any be in Christ he 1s a new creature. The 
old things are passed away, behold all things are made 
new. But all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to 
himself by Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of re- 
conciliation. For God indeed was in Christ reconciling the 
world to himself, not imputing to men their sins, and puttong 
on our lips the word of reconciliation. For Christ there- 
fore we are ambassadors, God as it were exhorting by us” 
(2 Cor: vaLIe20). 


1 There is a third motive of credibility, viz. the miracles with which 
the preaching of the Gospel is accompanied, and the most sensible of these 
miracles is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those who are converted. 
Cf. Rom. xv. 18-19 ; Gal. 11. 5; 1 Thess. 1. 5. 

5 


66 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Reduced to the affirmation of these supernatural realities, 
the Gospel is a mystery accepted on God’s authority. ‘We 
were approved by God that the gospel should be committed 
to us. . . . We preached among you the gospel of God. 
. . . We also give thanks to God without ceasing, because 
that when you had received of us the word of God which we 
taught you, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it 
is indeed) the word of God.’”’! The Apostle is the missionary 
and still more the warrant for the divine authority of the 
Gospel. ‘‘ How shall they believe him, of whom they have 
not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher ? 
And how shall they preach unless they be sent?” 3 

The Gospel is a divine message to which the faithful 
give their assent by an act which is an act of obedi- 
ence:® every thought must submit to the yoke of Christ, 
and the Apostle will unhesitatingly punish all disobedience. 
‘‘ Thanks be to God,” says Paul to the Romans, ‘that, after 
being the servants of sin, you have obeyed from the heart 
unto that form of doctrine, which has been delivered to 
you’. The Romans had not been evangelized by Paul 
personally ; nevertheless Paul is most sure of the identity 
of the Gospel they have received with the Gospel he 
preaches. 

The Gospel is both the preaching of what Christ is, and 
the preaching of the word of Christ: ‘‘ Faith then cometh 
by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”® Paul 
knows but the “‘testimony of God,” i.e. Jesus and Him 
crucified.© The object of faith is just as definite as the 


11 Thess. τιν 4, 9,13. Cf. 2 Cor. m. 17; Rom. 1. 9. 

5 Rom. Χ. 14, 15: Πῶς ἀκούσωσιν χωρὶς κηρύσσοντος, πῶς δὲ κηρύξωσιν 
ἐὰν μὴ ἀποσταλῶσιν ; Notice the words κήρυγμα and ἀποστολή. Cf. Rom. 
1. 5: ἀποστολὴν εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως, the apostolate to bring about the 
obedience of faith. 

°2 Cor. x. 6,7: αἰχμαλωτίζοντες πᾶν νόημα εἰς τὴν ὑπακοὴν τοῦ Χριστοῦ. 

4Rom. vi. 17: ὑπηκοήσατε ἐκ καρδίας εἰς ὃν παρεδόθητε τύπον διδαχῆς. 
(Cf. 'Col. 11. 7: βεβαιούμενοι τῇ πίστει καθὼς ἐδιδάχθητε). Notice the terms 
παράδοσις and διδαχή. 

δ Rom. x. 17: ἡ πίστις ἐξ ἀκοῆς, ἡ δὲ ἀκοὴ διὰ ῥήματος Χριστοῦ. (We 
must read Χριστοῦ and not θεοῦ). Cf. 1 Pet. τ. 25: τὸ ῥῆμα [τοῦ κυρίου] 
TO εὐαγγελισθὲν εἰς ὑμᾶς. 


51 Cor. τι. 1-2, ΦΌΤΙΟΗΕΕ, “ Einleitung,” pp. 279-80. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 67 


Divine authority on which it rests, and the Apostolic au- 
thority by which it is announced. 
yrs 

The Gospel does not require a merely subjective and 
speculative assent, faith must pass into action. When Paul 
says to the pagan converts at Corinth: Such sinners you 
used to be, but ‘“‘you are washed, you are sanctified, you 
are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
Spirit of our God (1 Cor. vi. 11), the word ἀπελούσασθε 
reminds us of the baptism administered in the name of 
Christ and accompanied with the outpouring of the Spirit. 
Some more precise indications are found elsewhere. Paul 
has been told of the disputes that divide the Church 
of Corinth: some claim they belong to Paul, others to 
Apollos, others to Cephas, others to Christ. Why these 
parties? “15 Christ divided? Was Paul then crucified 
for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 
I give God thanks that I baptized none of you but Crispus 
and Caius, lest any should say that you were baptized in my 
name.”? Baptism is not a symbolical ablution or a legal 
cleansing: it confers on the faithful a new and lasting 
state: ‘‘As many of you as have been baptized in Christ 
have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek; there 
is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; 
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” ὃ 

As the Jewish communities meet on the Sabbath-day 
for the synagogue services, so also the Christian commu- 
nities meet together: every week there is a special day set 
apart for those meetings (1 Cor. xvi. 2). A meeting—prob- 
ably that same weekly meeting—has for its purpose the 
celebration of the Eucharist, the blessing of the chalice and 
the breaking of the bread (1 Cor. x. 16). They speak of 


τ, 2 Cor. 1. 22. It is interesting to compare this passage with 
Heb. vi. 1-2, and note the successive actions that are there enumerated : 
in the first place moral conversion, then faith in God, then the “ doc- 
trine of baptisms,” the imposition of hands, the resurrection of the 
dead, and the last judgment. As to the meaning of verse 2, cf. Wexst- 
cort, “ Hebrews” (1892), p. 145. 

21 Cor. 1. 13-15. Cf. 1 Cor. tv. 1. 

3 Gal. m1. 27-9. Cf. 1 Cor. xu. 13. 

5* 


68 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


gathering together to eat, 1.6. to eat the meal of the Lord. 
This common celebration of the Eucharist is the centre of 
the new religious life; it is the sensible expression of its 
unity: communion in Christ’s body, communion in His 
blood: ‘‘ As there is but one bread, we being many are one 
body, all that partake of one bread’’.? 

This common worship is accompanied by a kind of 
common sharing of souls. This we have already seen in 
the case of the charisms, one of the criteria of which is the 
good they bring to the community, and the edification they 
give. The faithful are welded together by this new 
solidarity’ which consists in separating themselves morally 
from the pagan world by which they are surrounded; a 
solidarity which requires them also to cease to hold com- 
munion with any brother who does not comply with the 
duties of a Christian life. If you had to flee from forni- 
cators and from idolaters, ‘“‘you must needs go out of 
this world,” says Paul to the Corinthians (1 Cor. v. 10). 
But you must part from any one bearing the name of 
Christian, who ‘‘is a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of 
idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with 
such an one do not so much as eat”. As to those who 
are not Christians, you may abstain from judging their con- 
duct: ‘‘ What have I to do to judge them that are without? 
Do not you judge them that are within? For them that 
are without, God will judge. Put away the evil one from 
among yourselves.” ὃ 

The faithful constitute then a society apart; they live 
together in habitual contact, like members of one family, 
so that Paul can write to those of Corinth: “1 fear lest 
perhaps when I come, I shall not find you such as I would 


11 Cor. x1. 33 and x1. 20. 

31 Cor. x. 17. E. von Dogscnirz, ‘‘ Die urchristlichen Gemeinden”’ 
(Leipzig, 1902), p. 20. 

51 Cor. v. 11-13. Cf. 2 Thess. m1. 6, where the command is given 
to separate from any brother who lives irregularly and ‘‘ not according 
to the instructions received from us ”’ (μὴ κατὰ τὴν παράδοσιν ἣν παρελάβοσαν 
map ἡμῶν). The παράδοσις they have received from Paul holds good for 
' the: Thessalonians: ‘‘ If any man obey not our word by this epistle, note 


that man, and do not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed ” 
(id. 14). ; 


THE INFANT CHURCH 69 


. . lest perhaps contentions, rivalries, animosities, dissen- 
sions, detractions, whisperings, swellings, troubles be 
among you” (2 Cor. xu. 20). If disputes regarding their 
temporal welfare arise among them, Paul entreats them 
earnestly to come toa friendly settlement by themselves, 
and not to have recourse to the pagan magistrates (1 Cor. 
vi. 1-6). The faithful watch and protect one another. 
They supervise one another, even as regards what is served 
at table, we might say; since even in those domestic details ἃ 
Christian must carefully abstain from scandalizing his 
brethren. ‘‘ Let not then your good be evil spoken of. . . . 
Let us follow after the things that are of peace; and keep 
the things that are of edification one towards another. 
Destroy not the work of God for meat” (Rom. xiv. 15-20). 
As they watch one another, so also they admonish one 
another. “1 myself also,” says St. Paul to the Romans, 
‘“‘am assured of you... that you are able to admonish 
one another (νουθετεῖν) (Rom. xv. 14). Fraternal correc- 
tion becomes an element of anarchy unless some authority 
intervenes to keep it within proper bounds; and that 
authority is vested in others, besides the Apostle himself: 
‘“We beseech you, brethren, to consider those who labour 
among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish 
you; that you esteem them more abundantly in charity for 
their work’s sake.” ! 

3 τν 

Among the jewries, the word συναγωγή designates the 
assembling together of the Jews, and thence, in a broader 
sense, the local community and the place where its 
members assemble.? Christians have no special buildings 
for their religious meetings, they assemble where they can, 
as the guests of this or of that Christian who can place a 
large hall at their disposal. Neither do they use the word 
προσευχή ΟΥ̓ the word συναγωγή to designate the place where 
they worship; they use the word ἐκκλησία. This last 
word happens to belong both to the terminology of the LXX 


11 Thess. v. 12-13: ἐρωτῶμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, εἰδέναι τοὺς κοπιῶντας 
ORR en ad \ ” , Cy at Be) , \ a ats) TI 3 
ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ προϊσταμένους ὑμῶν ἐν κυρίῳ καὶ νουθετοῦντας ὑμᾶς. Cf. 2 Thess. 
I. 14-15, 

3 ScHURER, vol. τι. p. 492, 


70 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


which uses it as equivalent to συναγωγή, and to the most 
classical Greek, in which it designates the plenary delibera- 
tive assembly of all the free citizens of a city. A popular 
assembly, like that of the people of Ephesus in a theatre, is an 
ἐκκλησία; 1.6. a meeting, ἃ convocation.! But this meeting 
is truly an expression of unity: ‘‘You come together 
into one place” for the Eucharist, says St. Paul;? and in 
the same sense: ‘‘ When the whole church comes together 
into one place’. In many passages St. Paul calls the 
faithful gathered together by the name ἐκκλησία: the prophet 
who prophesies is a source of edification for the church, that 
is, the faithful who are present (1 Cor. σιν. 4); the Christian 
who speaks in unintelligible tongues holds an inferior rank, as 
compared with the Apostle who only says five words to the 
faithful who are present, that is, to the church (xIv. 19); 
when the church assembles in the same place, if all the 
faithful speak in tongues, the unconverted Gentile ‘‘ who 
comes in” will look upon them as out of their senses (XIV. 
23). Women must remain silent in the meetings of the 
faithful, that is, in the churches (xIv. 34); for it is unbe- 
coming for a woman to speak in such a meeting, that is in 
the church (Σιν. 35). 

Taken in a wider sense, the word ἐκκλησία comes to de- 
signate, not only the actual meeting together, but the people 
who habitually meet together in some particular place. Paul, 
writing from Ephesus to the Corinthians, says: ‘‘ Aquila and 
Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church 
(ἐκκλησία) that is in their house” (1 Cor. xvi. 19). Like- 
wise, in the Epistle to the Romans, he says; ‘Salute 


! Acts xix. 32, 39,41. Dirrensercer, ‘‘ Sylloge,” vol. m1. pp. 140-7, 
the index at the word ἐκκλησία. Gtorz, art. ““ Ekklesia” in DarEMBERG’s 
dictionary. Soxm, ‘‘ Kirchenrecht,” p. 16 and foll. Harnack, ‘‘ Lukas 
der Arzt’”’ (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 25-6. 

21 Cor. x1. 20: συνερχομένων ὑμῶν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ. 

91 Cor. χιν. 23: ἐὰν συνέλθῃ ἡ ἐκκλησία ὅλη ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ. .. The 
Church, then, is above all a concrete and localized thing, not a trans- 
cendent and heavenly entity. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 343, 
grants that the term ἐκκλησία was not invented by Paul, but by the 
Palestinian communities: Paul found it already in use. The Latin- 
speaking Christians will adopt it, without translating it. Dxissmann, 
pp. 76-7. - 


THE INFANT CHURCH (a 


Priscilla and Aquila . . . and the ἐκκλησία which is in their 
house” (Rom. xvi. 5)." 

Tn a still wider sense, the word ἐκκλησία is used later on 
to designate the whole number of the faithful of one and 
the same city, as may be judged from the inscriptions of the 


Pauline Epistles. ‘Paul . . . to the church of the Thes- 
salonians, in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ ”’ 
(1 Thess. 1.1). “Paul... to the church of the Thes- 
salonians in God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ” 
(2 Thess.1.1). ‘Paul... to the church of God that is 
at Corinth” (1 Cor. 1.1). ‘Paul... to the church of 


God that is at Corinth, with all the saints that are in all 
Achaia” (2 Cor.1. 1). Paul does not speak of the church 
of Achaia. The church being a local community, St. Paul 
speaks of churches, in the plural, to designate several distinct 
communities. Nowhere are we told of the churches of 
Corinth or of the churches of Thessalonica. On the other 
hand, the Epistle to the Galatians is addressed to “the 
churches of Galatia” (Gal. 1. 2). In the same Epistle, 
mention is made of the “churches of Judea, that are in 
Christ” (Gal. 1. 22). In the two Hpistles to the Corinthians, 
the Apostle speaks of the “churches of Galatia’? (1 Cor. 
xvi. 1); of the “churches of Asia” (id. 19), of the ‘‘ churches 
of Macedonia” (2 Cor. vi. 2). He speaks also, in the 
same sense, of “churches” in the plural, without designating 
the provinces. He says to the Corinthians: ‘‘ What is there 
that you have had less than the other churches?” (2 Cor. 
xm. 13). ‘Shall I recall too my daily cares, the solicitude 
for all the churches?” (σι. 28); and to the Romans: ‘‘ Salute 
Priscilla and Aquila . . . to whom not I only give thanks, 
but also all the churches of the Gentiles” (Rom. xvt. 3-4). 
‘© All the churches of Christ salute you” (Rom. xvi. 16). 
Nor should we look for another meaning in the ex- 
pression Church of God used elsewhere by St. Paul: 
“Brethren,” he writes to the Thessalonians, “you are be- 
come followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, 


τ Οἵ, «Acta S. Iustini martyris,’ 2: ‘‘Quaesivit praefectus, quem in 
locum Christiani convenirent. Cui respondit Iustinus, eo unumquemque 
convenire quo vellet ac posset. An, inquit, existimas omnes 10s in 
eumdem locum convenire solitos ἢ Minime res ita se habet.” 


12 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things 
from your own countrymen, even as they have from the 
Jews” (1 Thess. 11.14). Again to the Thessalonians: ‘‘ We 
ourselves glory in you in the churches of God” (2 Thess. 1. 
4); and, to the Corinthians: ‘‘If any man seem to be con- 
tentious, we have no such custom, nor the churches of God” 
(1 Cor. x1.16). In all these passages the expression ‘‘ church 
of God” is equivalent to the single word church. Thus 
St. Paul writes in the inscription of the first Epistle to the 
Corinthians: ‘‘. . . to the church of God that is at Corinth” 
(1 Cor. 1. 1). There is in this expression, together with 
the idea of belonging to God, a certain shade of nobility and 
sanctity, which recalls the intensive use of the divine name 
in Hebrew, where a thing is called ‘‘ of God,” because it is 
eminent in its own kind. 

The word Church has so far a merely local and empirical 
meaning; and it is easy to prove that this meaning is 
either the primary meaning or at least the first of all deri- 
vative meanings; and that the word is not, as some would 
have it, before all a title of honour, not to say an oratorical 
expression, chosen by the first Christian generation to de- 
signate, not the local community, but the whole number of 
the faithful dispersed all over the world, the invisible Church. 
We believe, on the contrary, that the Christian language 
proceeded rather from the concrete to the abstract, and that 
the word Church, after designating, like the word synagogue, 
a local reality, came to express another reality, another 
unity, which faith perceived with perfect consciousness ; 
and this other meaning of the word Church is met with in 
the great Pauline epistles. 

Paul says to the Galatians: ‘‘ You have heard of my 
conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion: how that 
beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God, and wasted 
10 ᾿ (Gal. 1. 18); to the Corinthians: “1 am not worthy to 
be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of 
God” (1 Cor. xv. 9), When using this language, he has 
in view not a local church, the church of Jerusalem or that 
of Damascus, but the Church in the abstract, that which 
will be called later on the ‘‘.\Christian name”. However, in 
the eyes of St, Paul, this abstraction is also a living reality, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 73 


which his faith shows to be just as living as Israel or the 
Greek world. He writes to the Corinthians: ‘‘ Be without 
offence to the Jews or to the Gentiles, or to the Church 
of God” (1 Cor. x. 32). The Church of God is the new 
people which has been created in Jesus Christ: “ Neither cir- 
cumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but to be 
a new creature. And whosoever shall follow this canon, 
peace on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God’! 
by contrast with Israel according to the flesh. 

We have now discovered the unity of unities, the 
foundation of that world-wide unity: namely in this that 
justification is both individual and collective: that through 
baptism we are grafted on the same tree.? This is why 
‘«©we being many, are one body in Christ, and each and all 
members of one another ’’.® 

As the body is one and has several members, and as all 
the members of the body, in spite of their number, form 
but one body, so it is with Christ ; for we were all baptized 
into one spirit, to form but one body, whether we be Jews 
or Gentiles, slaves or freemen, and all we have drunk of the 
same spirit ... You are the body of Christ and his 
members. The local Church is indeed the body of Christ ; 
still, all the churches are not so many bodies of Christ, for 
Christ is one and undivided: and therefore all the churches 


1Gal. vi. 16. The word κανών here appears for the first time in 
Christian terminology: it belongs to the LXX (Judith x11. 6 and Job 
xxxvi. 5) where it has the classical meaning of staff, then of metre, or 
measure. In 2 Cor. x. 13, it has still the sense of metre. In Gal. vi. 16, 
it signifies imperative rule, and thus we come to the meaning sanctioned 
by Christian terminology. Cf. T. Zann, ‘‘ Grundriss der Geschichte des 
N.T. Kanons”’ (Leipzig, 1901), pp. 1-7. 

2 Rom. vi. 5: σύμφυτοι γεγόναμεν. Paul takes up again this com- 
parison and develops it in the quasi-parable of the wild olive-tree grafted 
on the cultivated olive-tree in Rom. x1. 17-24. 

Rom. xu. 5: of πολλοὶ ἕν σῶμά ἐσμεν ἐν Χριστῷ, τὸ δὲ καθ᾽ εἷς 
ἀλλήλων μέλη. ΟἿ. 1 Cor. 1. 9: ἐκλήθητε εἰς κοινωνίαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ ᾿Ιησοῦ 
Χριστοῦ, τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν. Gal. m1. 28: πάντες ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε ἐν Χριστῷ 
Ἰησοῦ. 

41 Cor. xir. 12-13: καθάπερ τὸ σῶμα ἕν ἐστιν καὶ μέλη πολλὰ ἔχει, 
πάντα δὲ τὰ μέλη τοῦ σώματος, πολλὰ ὄντα μν ἐστιν σῶμα, οὕτως καὶ ὁ Χριστός. 
Then comes what may be called the parable of the members'and of the 
body, applied to the distribution of the charisms, and ending (v. 27) with 
the affirmation: ὑμεῖς δέ ἐστε σῶμα Χριστοῦ καὶ μέλη ἐκ μέρους. 


4 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


under heaven are grafted on Christ and are one because He 
is one. 
ἜΣ 

Harnack has called the attention of scholars to this 
primitive conception, namely that the Christians as Chris- 
tians are conscious of being a tertiwm genus, a new race, a 
race apart.1 Is not this conception already found in the 
great Pauline Epistles? For Paul, as for any convinced 
Pharisee, mankind is divided into two races, the Jews and 
the Greeks, and to Greeks are assimilated those whom the 
Greeks call Barbarians. Now Paul affirms that “there is 
no distinction between the Jew and the Greek: for the 
same Lord is over all, rich unto all that call upon him,” 
and that every one who invokes Him shall be saved (Rom. 
x. 12). The privilege bestowed upon Israel on account of 
her race and of her Law is proclaimed to have come to an 
end: “‘the faith in the truth” and ‘‘the sanctification of 
the spirit,” procured by ‘“‘the preaching of the Gospel” (2 
Thess. 11. 13) constitute a people, ‘‘ the seed of Abraham,” " 
which is no longer Greek or Jewish and is most plainly 
distinct both from the Jews and from the Greeks. A 
problem now arises, which is a stumbling-block for some, 
the problem of the reprobation of the Jews.* Separated 
from the Jews because they reject the Jewish Law, from 
the Greeks because they reject the heathen gods, the 
Christians form dispersed communities, that have been 
founded by the Apostles, and are bound together through 


‘This point is urged especially in the Κήρυγμα Πέτρου (CLEM. 
** Stromat.” vi. 5; Dosscniirz, ‘“‘ Kerygma Petri,” p. 21): τὰ γὰρ ἑλλήνων 
καὶ ἰουδαίων παλαιά, ὑμεῖς δὲ of καινῶς αὐτὸν τρίτῳ γένει σεβόμενοι Χριστιανοί. 
Cf. also Aristip. ‘‘ Apolog.’’ 2 (ed. ΒΟΒΙΝΒΟΝ, p. 100) and ΤΈΒΤΟΙΙ, 
*““Scorp.” 10, “ Ad Nation.” 1, 8. Harnack, ““ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 232, 
shows that the expression tertiwm genus was first a sarcastic insult 
cast at the Christians by the pagans. The Christians took it up and 
accepted it as a characteristic designation of the new people which 
they were. For them the word yévos expressed an aspect of the Church 
of God. 

? Gal. 11. 29. 

* Of. 1 Cor. x. 32, already quoted: ‘‘ Be without offence to the Jews 
and to the Gentiles, and to the Church of God”’. 

*That is the problem taken up by St. Paul in Rom. tx.-x1. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 15 


a spiritual and visible union. ‘They claim for their dis- 
persed members the name of ‘Church of God,” long before 
accepting the name of Christians given them by the Greeks. 


Excursus A. 


The Church in the Gospel. Value of Matt. xvi. 18-19. 


Nowadays scholars are willing to grant that the notion 
of a Church—the “master-piece in the Catholic system,” 
indeed “‘ Catholicism itself’”—is in germ in the first Chris- 
tian communities. In the previous pages, we trust to have 
shown the well-founded character of this assertion, and 
even of a less restricted assertion. But once this historical 
fact has been granted, the same scholars go on to say that, 
‘“‘Tf the founder of the Christian religion deemed belief in 
the Gospel and life in accordance with it to be compatible 
with membership of the synagogue and observance of the 
Jewish Law, the same could not have been incompatible 
with membership of the Catholic Church”! Thus to 
formulate the question, is to put it badly, for Catholicism is 
not the Law, the Synagogue, and Pharisaism: Jesus may 
disown all that past, and yet not disown, ipso facto, and in 
anticipation, the Church, unless indeed the Gospel is a kind 
of elusive essence, as is claimed by some contemporary 
idealists; or a kind of gross eschatology, as is claimed by 
others. Hence the question before us is whether the idea of 
the Church belongs to the Gospel of Jesus or is foreign to it. 

ae 

Jesus, we are told, preached the near coming of the 
Kingdom of God; His conception of it was purely apoca- 
lyptic : how then could He have come to conceive of a religious 
society constituted so as to abide? The notion of an earthly 
society, that would be neither the Kingdom of God, nor the 
people of Israel, but would take the place of both, is out- 
side the perspective of Jesus, who ever preached only the 
Kingdom, and its imminent catastrophic advent, Hence 
He determined nothing and said nothing about an earthly 
institution destined to replace the Jewish dispensation. 


1 Harnack, ‘*‘ Dogmengeschichte,” vol. 1. p. 306. 


76 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


‘‘Men could speak of the Church, only after the Church 
had come into existence, i.e. after the Jewish people, as a 
whole, had refused to listen to the Apostolic preaching, and 
the Christian groups had become more and more strongly 
and definitely organized outside the religious organization of 
Israel. . . . Instead of the expected kingdom, the Church 
came, and the idea of the Church was substituted by the 
force of events for the idea of the kingdom.” 1 

In the first place, then, we are confronted with a critical 
systematization of the teaching of Jesus, and in this system- 
atization no room is left for the idea of the Church. 
But, first of all, this systematization is itself far from certain. 
As a matter of fact, we must deny that the idea of the 
kingdom was exclusively apocalyptic. I know full well 
that in doing so we oppose what is considered in some 
quarters, an intangible dogma: nevertheless, we prefer to 
abide by the view of those who look upon the Gospel idea 
of the kingdom as something other than an apocalyptic idea, 
and as I have written a whole book in defence of this 
view, I may be excused from reopening the discussion 
here.” 

In the second place the idea of the kingdom, as sup- 
plied by the Gospel, is distinct from the idea of the Church. 
For Jesus Himself, and in accordance with His own state- 
ments, the evangelical preaching of the Kingdom has not 
the gift of conquering all those to whom it is addressed: 
there are some who reject it, by reason of their unbelief; 
there are others who are not worthy of it; there are dogs, 
to whom we must not give what is holy, swine before whom 
we must not cast pearls, ‘‘ your pearls, lest perhaps they 
trample them under their feet, and, turning upon you, they 
tear you” (Matt. v1.6). There are houses and cities against 
which the disciples are told to shake off the dust from their 
sandals, because those houses and cities have not received 
them (Mark vi. 11). There are hearers who understand 
the message of Jesus, and others who do not: ‘‘'To you it is 


1A. Lorsy, “Les Evangiles Synoptiques,” vol. τι. p, 9. Cf. W. 
Sanpay, “The Life of Christ in recent Research” (Oxford, 1907), 
pp. 76-89. 

* Cf. my “ Enseignement de Jésus ” (Paris, 1905). 


THE INFANT CHURCH {{| 


given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God: but to 
them that are without, all things are parables” (Mark tv. 
11). Therefore even here below those who know the King- 
dom are distinguished from those who are outside. 

Those who know the Kingdom form, round Jesus, a 
croup that is very small in the beginning. Jesus looks upon 
His followers as a flock, of which He is the Shepherd: and 
what a small flock it is! ‘‘ Fear not, little flock, for it hath 
pleased your Father to give you the Kingdom” (Luke x11. 
32). The figure of the flock recalls that of the chickens 
gathered under the wings of the hen (Luke xi. 34). This 
latter comparison is quite in the manner of the parables of 
Jesus, and bears on its very face the surest signs of authen- 
ticity. Jesus announces beforehand that His passion will 
scandalize His disciples, and disperse the sheep of the flock 
whose shepherd He is, ‘‘I will strike the shepherd, and 
the sheep shall be dispersed”? (Mark χιν. 27), He says, ap- 
plying to Himself a word of the prophet Zacharias, the 
flock is distinct from the Kingdom. 

But the flock seems to be the beginning of a Church. 
The Gospel has never been a bodiless spirit: its first fol- 
lowers were visible and made up ἃ group. Even granting 
that Catholic historians may at times be suspected of dis- 
covering too early the first outlines of ecclesiology, are not 
Protestant historians, like Harnack, open to the charge of 
a constant tendency to postpone the time when they actu- 
ally appear? Harnack is willing to concede that the earliest 
Christian community, that which was formed at Jerusalem, 
was a ‘‘community of brothers” for a ‘common worship 
of God;”’ but in all that he sees only ‘‘ a mysterious shadow 
of the heavenly Church” :! why does he disjoin the fact of 
this common brotherhood and religion from the idea of 
the Church save because he desires, almost in spite of 
himself, to preserve the Protestant dogma of the Church’s 
invisibility? Hlsewhere,? the same historian notes the 
formation of a society, but only outside “the inner circle of 
the Apostles, the band of twelve whom Jesus had gathered 
around Him”. Why does he separate this formed and visible 


1“ Das Wesen des Christentums ” (1908), p. 132. 
2 Ibid. p. 96. Of. ““ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 32. 


78 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


society from the group of the Twelve, when it is most certain 
that the Twelve were the centre around which it was formed ? 
We are told that Jesus alone was the Master, and the dis- 
ciples alone the disciples, and that Jesus had not founded the 
group of the Twelve as a ‘“‘union for the service of God”’. 
But this is mere quibbling, for, in fact, the Twelve who are 
disciples of the Master, are distinguished from the other 
disciples, and are already a ‘‘union” so truly that, immedi- 
ately after the departure of the Master, all the disciples rally 
around them, as a centre, unhesitatingly and unquestioningly. 
Harnack acknowledges that this ‘“‘ was the germ from which 
all subsequent developments sprang”. But did not that 
‘““oerm” exist before it began to germinate ? 

Loisy has seen the realities of the case more distinctly 
than Harnack. The infant “society” at its birth is to 
be identified with the Twelve and the faithful disciples. 
To whatever minimum some may reduce it, it remains a 
group and a group distinct from the world by which it is 
encompassed. It is a ‘‘circumscribed group, perfectly re- 
cognizable, a very centralized, even a hierarchical fraternity. 
Jesus is the centre and the chief, the incontestable author- 
ity. Around Him the disciples are not a confused mass ; 
the Saviour has distinguished among them the Twelve, 
and has associated these, directly and effectively, with His 
own ministry; even among the Twelve there is one who 
stands first, not only by the priority of his conversion or 
the ardour of his zeal, but by a kind of designation by the 
Master, accepted by the apostolic community. . . . It was 
an actual situation, apparently created by the missionary 
journeys of the Galilean ministry, but also evidently received 
and ratified by Jesus some time before the Passion. . . 
The Church was born and endured through the development 
of an organization of which the outline is traced in the 
Gospel.” 4 

Whilst Harnack dissociates the Church from the Gospel, 
Loisy replaces the Church in the Gospel, but connects 
the fact of the Church with the idea of the eschatological 
Kingdom. ‘‘ Jesus,” he writes, ‘‘ provided for the diffusion 
of the Gospel for the time then present.” But why does 


1 << T,Evangile et l’Eglise ” (1902), p. 90 and foll. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 79 


Loisy add: ‘‘He thus prepared the Kingdom to come. 
Neither the society round Him, nor the Kingdom, was an 
invisible, impalpable reality, a society of souls, but a 
society of men who were the bearers of the Gospel, and 
were to become the Kingdom”? lLoisy assumes the im- 
minent and catastrophic advent of the Kingdom, and there- 
fore looks upon the society of the disciples gathered by 
Jesus around His person as an ‘inauguration of the King- 
dom,” which is soon to appear in all its glory. This, he 
thinks, was a tragic illusion of the Galilean prophet. The 
announced Kingdom did not come; but the society of the 
disciples to whom it had been announced, and who continued 
for many years to expect it, was perpetuated through this 
very expectation. The society of expectant disciples was 
the Church. We on the contrary who deny that the King- 
dom preached by Jesus was to be realized forthwith and 
under apocalyptic forms, we who hold that the very complex 
notion of the Kingdom implies above all, as regards man- 
kind here below, an inner and spiritual advent, and a 
glorious advent only in the next life, combine together— 
without confusing them—the idea of the Church and the 
idea of the inner advent. No one will venture to say that 
in the words: “Fear not, little flock, for it hath pleased 
your Father to give you the kingdom,” the flock and the 
Kingdom are but one and the same reality. ΤῸ this faith- 
ful flock the kingdom of the Father is promised in heaven ; 
here below, this faithful flock is the group of souls that 
have obtained the precious stone of the interior kingdom ; 
but here below, this flock is also a visible collectivity, al- 
though one can never be sure that there is an equation 
in it between the number of those who are seen, and the 
number of those who are justified by God. 
* * 
* 

When we have dismissed the hypothesis of those critics 
who maintain that Jesus thought the end of the world at 
hand, we can easily deal with their further difficulty that 
Jesus could not foresee the Church, since He foresaw no 
future for anything in this world. Let us note, however, 
the many corrections, required by the facts themselves, 
which are called for by such a broad assertion. 


80 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Conversion, as well as salvation, is doubtless personal, 
but perseverance is collective: ‘“‘ Follow me” is a call 
addressed by Jesus many a time and to many a disciple,! 
and that the disciples follow Jesus, is granted by those 
whose views we are now discussing; but they refuse to 
see in this any other social bond than attachment to the 
person of the Master. Why, then, is it that, after the 
Master is gone, the social bond continues to subsist ? 

The intention of the Saviour as regards the lasting, spirit- 
ual, and visible bond that was to hold together His disciples 
after He had gone back to His Father, is defined in some 
Gospel texts, which—as was to be expected—are most 
fiercely called in question. Let us note the texts of 
the fourth Gospel in which the Saviour commands His 
disciples to serve one another, after the example He sets 
them by washing their feet (John xi. 14-16, 34-5); or 
again the comparison He draws between the vine and the 
branches, as an analogy to the life the Master shares with 
His disciples (xv. 5-7); the parable of the Good Shepherd 
(x. 14-16); the prayer after the last supper, especially the 
passage where Jesus begs that His disciples may be one 
(xvi. 6-26). The historical character of the Johannine texts 
is, we know, rejected as a whole; but is this a reason for 
setting them aside altogether and passing by even the ana- 
logy between the texts we have just recalled and the 
ecclesiology of the great Pauline Epistles? The writers 
from whose opinion we differ are willing to grant that the 
fourth Gospel is full of echoes of the Synoptics: why not 
then take into account the words ascribed to Jesus: 
‘Simon, son of John . . . feed my lambs . . . feed my 
sheep” (xxI. 15-17)? Commenting on this passage, Loisy 
has observed that the designation of the Apostle by his full 
name, ‘‘ Simon, son of John,” marked the solemn character 
of the scene and recalled the apostrophe: ‘‘ Blessed art thou, 
Simon, son of Jona,” in St. Matthew’s Gospel (xvi. 17). 
He observes, too, that in contents as well as in form, this 
passage is parallel to the “‘ Thou art Peter” of St. Matthew 


1 Matt. vu. 22, xvi. 24, xrx. 21; Mark, 1. 14, x. 21; Luke v. 
27; John xu. 26, xx1. 22. Cf. Matt. vim. 19, x1x. 28; Luke rx. 57, 
61, etc. : 


THE INFANT CHURCH 81 


(xvi. 18), and to the ‘Confirm thy brethren” of St. Luke 
(xxl. 82). ‘‘ We have here,” he says, ‘* three echoes of the 
same tradition, equally faithful as to its substance”.’ In 
all sincerity, I must confess that such a distinction between 
substance and (I suppose) accidents is not very satisfac- 
tory in the present case. But had this distinction a basis 
(dato, non concesso), we should have here a new attestation 
of a synoptic tradition favourable to the conception of the 
flock led by its shepherd, a conception which, as we have 
already seen, is the conception of ecclesiology. 

The synoptic gospels must be assigned to an earlier date 
than the Gospel of St. John, and this includes St. Matthew. 
In my opinion this last-mentioned Gospel was written about 
the year 70. But however that may be, and even if the 
critics pronounce so early a date to be inadmissible, the 
features they recognize in this Gospel remain to be accounted 
for. ‘* The horizon of Matthew,” says Harnack, ‘‘is that of 
Palestine, and this gospel is the work of the Palestinian 
Church which it exhibits as emancipated from the law, and 
in friendship with the Gentiles. Most probably it is the 
work of the Hellenistic part of the original Christian com- 
munity, and was intended for the Jews of the Dispersion, 
described in Acts vi., who lived at Jerusalem and in due 
course formed themselves into little circles in and around the 
original Christian community. . . . That the Gospel of St. 
Matthew speedily forced the two other synoptic gospels into 
the background, even in the Gentile Church, is a well-known 
fact.” Harnack seeks for the reagon of this fact and finds that 
it is because the Gospel of St. Matthew is a powerful vindi- 
cation of Christianity against the objections of the Jews, 
because it has an interest in the teaching of Jesus for its 
own sake, and in general because it instructs and proves, and 
all through keeps the Church (Gemeinde) well in the fore- 


1A. Lotsy, ‘“‘ Le quatriéme Evangile ” (Paris, 1903), p. 941. Loisy 
does not indeed look upon chapter xxi. as authentic; he regards it asa 
supplement, the style of which imitates skilfully that of the fourth 
Gospel. Its unknown redactor, he says, had to take into account ‘‘ the 
Roman tradition and the feeling that Peter’s primacy continued in the 
Church of Rome” (p. 943). See the answer to this objection in A. 
Jiticuser, “Hinleitung ” (1894), p. 245 and foll. Caumes, ‘‘ Evang. selon 
saint Jean ” (Paris, 1904), pp. 466-73. 
6 


82 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


ground. ‘This is in truth a characteristic feature of Matthew, 
and Harnack estimates it aright when he notes that the 
Gospel of Matthew is impersonal, and was compiled to be a 
sort of Church-book (Gemeindebuch) and is in many respects 
the “first liturgical book of the Christian Church, in the 
first place of the Church of Palestine”.1 Thus in Harnack’s 
judgment the Gospel of St. Matthew belonged to the earliest 
Christian community at Jerusalem, and was in some sort its 
Church-book. 

To these inferences Jiilcher, who dates this Gospel at 
about the year 100, adds others still more interesting inas- 
much as in our opinion they hold good quite imdepend- 
ently of the question of date. Jiilicher writes of the author 
of our Gospel: ‘“‘He has written a Catholic Gospel, and 
its truly Catholic temper has gained for it the first place 
among the Gospels”. It is he who makes the Christ 
say ‘‘ Baptize them ... and teach them to observe all 
that I have commanded you’. ‘In his eyes the com- 
munity, that is, the Church, forms the highest disciplin- 
ary authority, as the administrator of the heavenly gifts 
of grace, and it is already determined who is to rule and 
make laws within its jurisdiction ; according to his principles 
primitive Catholicism is already determined in its funda- 
mental features.” ? These observations are very instructive 
when one reflects that this truly Catholic Gospel was: the 
Church-book.of the,Hellenistic party in the original Christian 
community at Jerusalem. 

And to their inferences Jiilicher adds further confirma- 
tion, when he says of this Gospel: “Its standpoint is not 
that of Paul, or that of Peter, or that of James, but that of 
the Church, whose building he alone triumphantly predicts 
in xvi. 18”. This Gospel has exercised an extraordinary 
influence on the Church, because it is the work of a time 
‘“‘when the partition walls between the Brethren in Judea 
and the Brethren without had finally fallen in, and because 
it is the work of a man who, whilst as a writer he attained 
the standard set in Matthew xi. 52, bore in himself the 
spirit of the growing Universal Church, and knew how to 


1 A. Harnack, ‘‘ Lukas der Arzt” (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 118-20. 
* Jinicuer, “ Hinleitung,” p. 265. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 83 


write, without succumbing to party spirit, a Catholic Gospel, 
that is to say, one intended and fitted for all classes of 
believers ”’. 

It was necessary to cite these estimates of the character 
of St. Matthew’s Gospel, in order that we might with 
Harnack demonstrate its Palestinian character and with 
Jiilicher its simultaneous ‘‘ Catholic” character; as also to 
show that a passage like that on the building of the Church 
(xvr. 18) is entirely in keeping with the fundamental 
tendency of this Gospel. 

We must, moreover, further cite Wellhausen who says: 
“Τὺ is commonly and justly noted as distinctive of Matthew 
that he shows special interest in the ἐκκλησία, which he 
alone brings forward, and that in two places. Indeed, it is 
not only in those two places where he calls it by its accepted 
name, that he refers to it, for he has the reality itself in 
mind in all his parables concerning the Kingdom of Heaven. 
The Church is in his eyes the seed-plot on earth which 
attaches to the Kingdom of Heaven. It has, in the strict 
Catholic sense, worthy and unworthy members; the sifting 
and parting of which God allows to be delayed until the 
day of the Last Judgment, when the Kingdom of Heaven 
will pass from its preliminary to its definitive phase. <A 
member who has been drawn away from the community (by 
seducers, ψευδοπροφῆται, σκάνδαλα) must not be allowed to 
depart uncared for, but must be won back by every means 
possible; only when all friendly representation has failed of 
their effect, must recourse be had to excommunication (XVIII. 
10-17). The heads of the organization are the Teachers, 
and before all others Peter. As administrator of the King- 
dom of Heaven, that is, of the community, he bears the 
keys, the wnsignia of the master of the house. He has also 
another power, which is not in essential connexion with the 
power of the keys, the power to bind and loose; that is, the 
power to determine what shall be forbidden or permitted, 
what shall count or not, and likewise the teaching authority, 
which, it is true, has to do with practical, not theoretical 
matters.” ὦ 

1 J. Wettnausen, ‘ Kinleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien ” (Ber- 


lin, 1909), p. 70. 
6 * 


84 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


We may come now to the most famous of all these texts. 
‘“Thou art Peter: and upon this rock I will build my church, 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I 
will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 
And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be 
bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matt. xvr. 18-19). 
Against this text it is urged that it is not found in the 
parallel passages of Mark and Luke, and this cannot be 
denied; that it belongs therefore neither to the tradition re- 
presented by Mark, where Mark is reproduced by Matthew 
and Luke, nor to those logia unused by Mark, which were 
used by Matthew and Luke, and this is possible. But 
neither of these two observations can justify the supposition 
that this particular logion ‘‘ Thow art Peter (Rock),” the only 
one of its kind, is less authentic than any other similarly 
isolated logion, to be found either in St. Matthew or in 
St. Luke.! 


1Rescu, ““ Aussercanonische Paralleltexte zu den Evangelien,” 
vol. τ. (Leipzig, 1893), p. 185, admits the authenticity of Matt. xvi. 17, 
which is found in St. Justin (‘‘ Dial.” c. 4), and to which he thinks 
St. Paul alludes in Gal. 1. 16-17. He thinks these words of the Saviour 
to St. Peter (‘‘Beatus es, Simon Bariona’’) belong to the primitive 
Gospel (‘‘ Urevangelium ’’); that v. 190 (‘‘ Quaecumque ligaveris’’) is a 
doublet of Matt. xv. 18; and that v. 19a (“Tibi dabo claves . . ..’’) is 
authentic, but addressed, not to Peter only, but to all the Apostles. We 
need not remark that these two judgments are mere conjectures. There 
remains v. 18. M. Rescu is sure that it was lacking in the primitive 
form of Matthew’s Gospel : another pure conjecture, for there is in the 
MSS. no trace whatever of any hesitancy. M. ΒΈΒΟΗ is sure that v. 18, 
as we have it now, was unknown all through the second century, and 
that it is not quoted, for instance, by Ireneeus, or by Clement of 
Alexandria (this may be disputed, as regards Irenzus). We grant 
that this silence is worth careful notice, but it is no more conclusive 
than any other argument ex silentio. Again M. Resco is sure that the 
earliest explicit quotation of this text that we know of, is found in 
Tertullian (‘De pudicit.” 22) and in Origen (ap. Kuses. “H. E.’’ νι. 25, 
8. Also “In Exod. hom. v.” 4). But this shows that the text already be- 
longed to the tradition of both Latin and Greek MSS. The alleged trace 
of the text in the ‘‘ Homil. Clementinae ” is doubtful (“‘ Epist. Clem. ad 
Jacob.” and ‘ Homil. xvi.” 19). Even if it were not, no conclusion 
could be drawn, since the ‘Hom. Clem.” and the “ Recogn.” are both 
now dated from the fourth century. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 85 


This declaration of Jesus to His Apostle is made towards 
the end of the Galilean ministry ; the place where it is made 
was in the country of Caesarea Philippi, where the Master is 
then alone with His disciples. As they go along, Jesus asks 
them: ‘‘ Whom do men say that lam?” They answer that 
some look upon Him as John the Baptist, others as Elias, 
others as one of the prophets. ‘‘And you?” Jesus asks. 
Peter answers: ‘Thou art the Christ,’ to which Jesus re- 
plies: ‘‘ Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and 
blood hath not revealed it to thee, but My Father who is in 
heaven. And I say to thee that thou art Peter. ...” We 
may observe that here St. Matthew gives the Apostle’s name 
inits Aramaic form: Simon Bariona (Σίμων Bapiwva), Simon, 
son of Jona or Jonas. When it has to recall the same ex- 
pression, the fourth Gospel uses a Graecized form Σίμων 
*"Iwdvov (John xxt. 15, 16, 17). We must not fail to 
notice in this second reading a mark of St. Matthew’s 
priority, and of the primitive character of the oral tradition 
which he used. 

The Father has revealed to Simon that Jesus is the 
Messias. ‘‘And I say to thee, ...” continues Jesus, 
contrasting His own words with what the Father has re- 
vealed directly to Peter, ‘“‘ And I say to thee, that thou art 
Peter ; and upon this rock I will build...” Jesus plays 
upon the Aramaic name Peter, but the play disappears both 
in Greek and in Latin: an excellent proof that the word 
was originally spoken in Aramaic, which was Jesus’s mother- 
tongue: “*Thou art Kepha and upon this kepha I will 
build . . .”.2 Jesus says: ‘‘Thou art Peter [Rock] (σὺ εἶ 


1J. WetLHAUSEN, ‘‘Das Evangelium Matthaei” (Berlin, 1904), p. 
83: ‘* Jonais Jona and no abbreviation of Johanan, and Matthew is in the 
right, not only against the Hebrew Gospel, a late compilation, but also 
against the fourth Gospel’’. 

? Recall John 1. 42: ‘Thou art Simon, the son of Jona: thou shalt 
be called Cephas (which is interpreted Peter)”. Cf. J. Harr, ‘‘ Cephas 
and Christ,” in the ‘‘ Journal of Theol. Studies,” vol. rx. (1907), p. 32: 
‘The actual word Cepha is not common in the oldest Targums in the 
sense of Rock. But the Targum of Onkelos employs it in a very pro- 
minent and important passage as the equivalent of the Sela or Rock, from 
which Moses drew water for the children of Israel. . . . On the other 
hand, Cepha is used of a precious stone in the Targum of Proverbs, and 
this sense of stone seems to predominate in Palestinian Aramaic.” 


86 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Πέτρος) and I will build upon this rock” («kat ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ 
πέτρᾳ οἰκοδομήσω) : Jesus points to this rock, it is present, 
it can be seen: this rock cannot then be understood as re- 
ferring to Christ, still less to the faith of Peter.! ‘Upon 
this rock I will build . . .” might be a reminiscence of 
Isaias (xxvitI. 16): ‘‘ Behold I have laid a stone in the 
foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious 
stone, a stone firmly set... ”. Again in Isaias (11. 1), 
Abraham is likened to the rock out of which Israel has been 
hewn. A still more exact analogy might be found in the 
short parable, recorded by St. Matthew (vir. 24-7) and St. 
Luke (vi. 48-9), of the man who built his house upon a 
rock, whom Jesus contrasts with the other man who built 
his house upon the sand. A flood came, and the house 
built upon the sand was carried away by the waters, whilst 
the other remained unshaken, because it was founded upon 
arock. Here, as in the declaration of Jesus to Simon, the 
rock is called πέτρα. 

“Upon this rock I will build my Church,” says Jesus: 
in this passage, three words can give rise to a plausible ob- 
jection, one which has become classical among contemporary 
Protestant critics. They claim that the notion of the 
ἐκκλησία is a Pauline creation; and they remind us that 
St. Paul speaks, not of the ἐκκλησία τοῦ χριστοῦ, but of the 
ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ. The expression to build applied to an 
ἐκκλησία, 15. also a Pauline expression.2, Hence the logion 
ascribed to Jesus by St. Matthew bears the stamp of an 
origin many years after the preaching of the Gospel. 

This objection is far from decisive: for, in the first 
place, the word itself, ἐκκλησία, is not a Pauline creation, 
since ἐκκλησία is also found in the LXX, where lke the syn- 
onymous word συναγωγή it designates the assembly of the 
Jews of one locality.? The ecclesiastes is one who addresses 


1 These two interpretations have their history, which is summed up 
by J. Turmet, ‘“ Hist. de la théol. posit.” vol. 1. (Paris, 1906), pp. 
152-71. 

51 Cor. m1. 10-17; Eph. τι. 19-22. 

’ Moreover the word ἐκκλησία is found once again in St. Matthew: 
“Tf thy brother shall offend against thee, go and rebuke him between 
thee and him alone. . . . And if he will not hear thee, take with thee 
one or two more. . .. And if he will not hear them, tell the church. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 87 


a Jewish assembly of that time. In Stephen’s discourse 
(Acts vil. 38), the word ἐκκλησία is taken in the meaning 
of the LXX and is used to designate the people of Israel 
gathered around Moses in the wilderness. It is used like- 
wise by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, to 
signify the assembly of the just of Israel in the heavenly 
Jerusalem (Heb. x11. 23).1 To build an ἐκκλησία may be a 
bold image which St. Paul developed and brought into 
common use. But, in the logion of St. Matthew, it is 
couched in a most simple form and is introduced naturally 
by the context: a rock is chosen to build upon, nothing can 
prevail against what is built on that rock. We are still far 
from St. Paul’s developments about the “‘upbuilding,”’ and 
this is rather a mark of archaism. There remains another 
difficulty: that Christ says My Church, an expression which 
has no analogy in the New Testament. I confess that I 
should feel more disturbed if some analogies were found 
there; for if this logion were of recent origin, should we not 
find in it something of the language of the Pauline Epistles 
and of the Acts? Since the expression ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ 
was alone used? at the time when St. Matthew’s Gospel was 


And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee asa heathen and 
publican” (Matt. xv. 15-17). In this text the word ἐκκλησία does not 
necessarily designate the Christian community: the progression clearly 
marked in that logion—first one, then two, finally all—shows quite clearly 
that the idea in view is of number alone. Hence ἐκκλησία designates 
here the collection of the people of one and the same city, according to 
the meaning in which this word is taken in the Psalms. Ps. xxt. 29, 
26, xxxiv. 18, xxxrx. 10, cv. 32, etc. 

1 WELLHAUSEN notes (p. 84) that the word ἐκκλησία was borrowed by 
the Christians from the Jews, and that the Aramaic word corresponding 
to it designates the Jewish as well as the Christian community: ‘‘ The 
Aramaic primitive word k’nischta designates the Jewish as well as the 
Christian community ”. This remark (as against Schiirer, Sohm, and the 
whole Protestant school) is of the greatest importance. Wellhausen adds 
that the Christians of Palestine used indiscriminately the word k’nischta 
to designate either the synagogue or the Church ; the word edta is not 
Palestinian, but Syriac. ‘‘The Syrians say edta for the Christians, and 
k’nuschta for the Jews. But with them too the distinction is not 
ancient.’ If that is the case, the verbal opposition between the word 
ἐκκλησία and the word συναγωγή is not strictly primitive and the idea 
alone counts. 

2 Cf. however, Rom. xvi. 16. 


88 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


drawn up, why was Christ made to say here, τὴν ἐκκλησίαν 
μου It may assist us to answer if we compare the expres- 
sion ‘‘my Church” with this other passage recorded by St. 
Matthew only: ‘All things are delivered to me by my 
Father. . . . Come to me, all you that labour. . . . Take 
up my yoke upon you, and learn of me... . For my 
yoke is sweet and my burden light.”! We may compare 
also this other passage likewise recorded only by St. Matthew 
(xvi. 20): ‘‘ Where there are two or three gathered to- 
gether in my name, there I am in the midst of them,” and 
also this given both by St. Matthew and St. Luke: ‘‘Jeru- 
salem, Jerusalem ... how often would I have gathered 
together thy children”. Jesus is the one who calls,? who 
gathers, who wishes that all should come to Him and be 
with Him, who imposes a yoke similar indeed to that of the 
Law, but far more light and easy. He is also the one who 
can destroy God’s temple and rebuild it three days after. 
Are not these so many analogues to the expression; “1 will 
build my Church” ?+ 

A still more specious objection urged against us is the 
following. Not only its form, it.is said, but the spirit which 
animates this logion, is of a much later date than the preach- 
ing of Jesus. It appears to be the earliest testimony to the 
pretensions of the Roman Church to the hegemony of all the 
churches, an anticipation of the state of things which came 


1 Matt. x1. 27-30. The Son of Man speaks of His kingdom which is 
God’s kingdom, and that precisely in St. Matthew (xur. 41 and xvi. 28), 
a remark made by WELLHAUSEN, p. 84. 

2 Matt. xxi. 37 (ἐπισυναγαγεῖν), Luke, x1. 34 (ἐπισυνάξαι). Com- 
pare the net that gathers in (συναγαγούσῃ) all kind of fishes (Matt. x11. 
47). Matt. xi. 30: 6 μὴ συνάγων per ἐμοῦ. We may notice that συνάγειν 
has the same root as σύναξις and συναγωγή. 

3Cf Mark mu. 17; Matt. mm. 13; Luke tv. 16; Matt. xxi. 9. 
Hottzmany, ‘‘ Neut. Theologie,” vol. 1. p. 211, likens ἔκκλητοι to ἐκκλησία. 
Cf. Matt. xxut. 14: πολλοί εἰσιν κλητοί. 

4The verbal boldness with which St. Paul speaks of building up the 
Church, can be more naturally accounted for if he is alluding to some 
Word of Jesus, that was known to the faithful. Hort, ‘‘ The Christian 
Keclesia’’ (London, 1897), p. 9. J. Worpsworta, “‘ Unity and Fellow- 
ship” (London, 1910), p. 76. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 89 


to be realized in the Church, and co-eval with that realiza- 
tion.! 

Is not this a case of proving too much and so proving 
nothing? MHoltzmann and Loisy place the composition of 
the Gospel according to St. Matthew about the year 100: 
can they find, at that date, even a single expression analogous 
to what they call the Roman hegemony? If they could it 
would be no difficulty for us theologians, who believe in the 
Divine right of the Roman primacy; but it is a most serious 
difficulty for those critics who do not believe in that Divine 
right. ΤῸ them we may justly say that the Flavian age is 
altogether too early for the state of things which you think 
occasioned the composition of that logion, and those critics 
are more consistent who maintain that it was interpolated 
into St. Matthew towards the end of the second century, at 
the time of Pope Victor, it may be, if not later. Then, on 
the supposition of Holtzmann and Loisy that the composi- 
tion of the Gospel according to St. Matthew synchronized 
with the “‘ work of building the Church,” how account for 
the fact that this work has left in the final redaction of that 
Gospel so few and such: faint traces of itself? If that 
redaction belonged really to the epoch of Clement of Rome 
and of Ignatius, should we not find in it some echo of the 
language of these two great leaders? Should we discover 
in the Gospel according to St. Matthew no other infiltration 
of the ecclesiastical spirit and of the Roman tendency than 
this declaration of the Saviour to Peter? 

ςς Upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates 
of hell [Hades] shall not prevail against it.” Hell is the 
abode of Satan the enemy of God, of Satan the tempter of 
Jesus in the wilderness, of Satan who makes Judas into a son 
of perdition. Paul heard Jesus say: “1 send thee to the 
Gentiles to open their eyes, that they may be converted from 
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God” 
(Acts xxvr. 18). ‘The God of peace will speedily crush 
Satan under your feet,” says St. Paul to the Romans (XVI. 
20), and Jesus in St. Luke (xx. 31) says to Peter: 


1 Lorsy, ‘‘ Evang. synopt.” vol. τι. p.10. Honrzmann, “ Neut. Theo- 
logie,” vol. τ. p. 210. J. Weiss, “Schriften des N.T.” (Gottingen, 1907), 
vol. 1. p. 344. 


90 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


‘‘Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you 
that he may sift you as wheat”. However, the ‘gates of 
Hades” do not signify exclusively Satan and his power: 
they signify also death. (1 Sap. xvi. 13; 3 Mac. v. 51. 
CL /Job<xxxvin. 174% Ws. ττχ 8; Ὅν. 18). A promiseiot 
immortality is made here to the Church: the gates of 
Hades shall never close upon her, as they do upon the 
dead, of whom the prophet Jonas said: ‘‘The bars of the 
earth have shut me up for ever” (Jonas 11. 7). 

Peter is the foundation stone, but here is another image 
of his function; Christ will give him the keys of the King- 
dom of Heaven. ‘This image of the keys may be understood 
in the sense that Peter is to be the one who opens to the 
Church the gates of the Kingdom, whilst the gates of Hades 
are powerless against her. The distinction between the 
Kingdom and the Church is here affirmed again. The keys 
signify the power of the chief steward: Isaias makes Yahweh 
address Eliacim in these words: “1 will lay the key of the 
house of David upon his shoulder: and he shali open, and 
none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open”’.? 
Peter has authority over the Kingdom: he can receive Cor- 
nelius into it, as well as give over to Satan Ananias and 
Sapphira. Peter opens and closes the entrance to the king- 
dom of heaven, he is its steward here below.? 

Jesus adds: “ Whatsoever thow shalt bind upon earth, 
at shall be bound alsoin heaven. . . .” These words, to bind 
and to loose, belong to the rabbinical language, in which 


1188. xxi. 22. Of. Apoc. m1. 7-8, where it is Jesus who carries 
the key of David. Compare Apoc. 1. 18: ‘‘I am the first, and the 
last, and alive, and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, 
and have the keys of death and of Hades.” Of. Apoc. xx. 13, 14, and 
Heb. τι. 14. Kaurzscu, ‘‘ Die Pseudepigraphen,” p. 455. In the Apoca- 
lypse of Baruch x1. 1, the archangel Michael is the key-bearer to the 
Kingdom of Heaven. G. Datman, ‘‘ Die Worte Jesu,” vol. 1. (Leipzig, 
1898), p. 176. He who has the keys is not the janitor but the major- 
domo who is put over all that belongs to the king. 

2 The keys are given to Peter. The interpretation according to which 
they are given to the Church, has also a history (see TURMEL, ‘‘ op. cit.” 
pp. 177-85), but no critical value. Datman, p. 177. ‘‘Thus Peter has, 
Matt. xvi. 19, the keys of the heavenly kingdom, and in his character of 
key-bearer is invested with full powers as the steward of God on earth.” 


THE INFANT CHURCH of 


they mean respectively to forbid and to allow, in the sense 
in which a rabbi either forbids or allows an action, according 
as it is, in his eyes, in harmony with the Law or against it; 
in the sense in which we read in the Mishna that the 
rigorist Shammai binds and the more accommodating Hillel 
looses! Jesus had denounced the Pharisees who “bind 
heavy burdens” to the shoulders of those who listen to 
them (Matt. xx. 2-4), whilst He, on the contrary, so often 
loosed His disciples from these Pharisaic rigours. That 
power to bind and to loose, which was exercised by Jesus, 
is given to Peter, and in Heaven God will sanction his deci- 
sions. The same thought is also found in another declara- 
tion of Jesus, which is addressed this time not to Peter, 
but to all the disciples together: ‘‘ Amen I say to you, what- 
soever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in 
heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be 
loosed also in heaven” (Matt. xvi. 18). However the 
power to bind and to loose designates not only a function 
discharged by casuists in the interpretation of a written 
law: it implies also a legislative and judicial power, and 
an authority to remit sins. 

The text of Christ’s declaration to Peter makes one 
solid whole: Peter is he who binds and looses, as Jesus binds 
and looses, as the Apostles bind and loose; he is the founda- 
tion, as Jesus is, and as the Apostles are also; but besides 
all that, he holds the primacy, and he alone is the one 
who has the keys of the kingdom, since he alone is the 
chief steward.” 

These are figures, but they are figures which the history 
of the days that immediately follow the Saviour’s passion 


1 Datman, p. 175-176. 

2Faithful to his theory of anticipation, Lorsy writes as follows 
(‘‘ Evang. synopt.” vol. m. p. 13): “It is not without reason that the 
Catholic tradition has based on this text the dogma of the Roman primacy. 
The consciousness of that primacy inspires throughout the development 
of Matthew, which has in view not only the historical person of Simon, but 
also the traditional succession of Simon Peter.’’ We should remember 
Loisy’s point of view. The same theory is in J. Weiss, vol. I. p. 345. 
P. WerRNLE, ‘‘ Die Quellen des Lebens Jesu” (Halle, 1904), p. 75: “ὙΠῸ 
Catholics have been entirely justified in coining the word Roman- 
Catholic”. 


92 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


exhibit as passing into realities: the shepherd has been 
stricken, the sheep have taken to flight, then suddenly they 
gather together again; and gather around Peter, who first 
saw the risen Christ.1 It is not because Peter is called 
Cephas that he becomes the rock on which rest the disciples 
now rallied and strengthened, those disciples once so anxious 
to know who was the first and the greatest among them? 
If Peter is the rock and the chief steward, it 15 because of a 
previously established economy, which alone can have laid 
that foundation of authority and of union. 


TS 
* 
We have not yet finished with the difficulties raised by 
present-day critics against the ‘‘ ecclesiastical thesis”. Har- 


nack, who deserves credit for refusing to look upon the 
message of Jesus as strictly eschatological, does not grant, 
however, that He foresaw the calling of the Gentiles or spoke 
of anything more than the salvation of Israel. The love of 
God and of men which was at the heart of the Gospel, was, 
he contends, so intense and living that it impelled the 
Apostles to undertake the conquest of the world, though 
about this their Master had been altogether silent.” 

Any one who has made up his mind to defend this 
portion must set aside the testimony of the fourth Gospel, 
which is thoroughly saturated with universalism. ‘The 
Word came into the world which He had made; He came 
consequently unto His own, and men did not receive Him, 
but to all those who did receive Him He gave the power to 
become sons of God (John 1. 10-12). The incarnation of 
the Word has for its end the adoption of mankind by God. 
St. Paul was not more universalist when he said that God 


1 The decisive part Peter plays soon after the Passion, in rallying the 
disciples and in bringing into existence the first of all the churches, the 
mother church, is luminously demonstrated by WErzsAcKER, p. 12 and foll. 
“ Peter was unquestionably the first man in the Primitive Church”. At 
the time of his first visit to Jerusalem, Paul cared very little about see- 
ing any one but Peter. ‘‘ The importance of Peter had been already 
recognized by the Master Himself, by whom he had already been 
distinguished beyond all his companions.” 

“ Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 31 and foll. See on this point 
M. Mernerzz, ‘‘ Jesus und die Heidenmission ” (Miinster, 1908). 

3 See especially John 1. 29, x. 16, x11. 20. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 93 


was in Christ and in Him reconciled ‘‘the world” unto 
Himself (2 Cor. v.19). The critics of whom we are speak- 
ing dismiss also the testimony of St. Matthew: ‘ Going 
therefore teach ye all nations” (xxv. 19), and that of St. 
Mark: ‘‘Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel 
to every creature” (xvi. 15), as well as that of St. Luke, in 
whose Gospel the risen Christ commands that ‘‘ penance 
and the remission of sins be preached in his name unto all 
nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (xxiv. 47). This grand 
act of opening the Gentile world to the apostleship of His 
disciples, which is imputed to Jesus in the New Testament, 
expressed, we are told, the faith of the second Christian 
generation, ‘‘the faith estimating, some fifty years after 
the Saviour’s death, the development of the Gospel work’’.' 

The Gospels themselves are invoked to prove that Jesus 
had only Israel in mind. At the head of the commands 
given by Jesus to His missionaries, Matthew places this: 
‘“‘Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the cities 
of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go ye rather to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. x. 5); and a few lines 
below: ‘‘ When they shall persecute you in one city, flee 
into another. Amen, I say to you, you shall not finish all 
the cities of Israel, till the Son of Man come” (x. 23); and 
elsewhere: ‘‘ You shall sit on twelve seats, judging the twelve 
tribes of Israel” (x1x. 28). Harnack infers from these texts 
that the evangelization of the Gentiles is beyond the horizon 
of Jesus. There are other texts, however, that suggest a 
contrary inference. In St. Matthew, Jesus foretells to His 
disciples that they shall be ‘‘ hated by all nations” (XxIv. 9), 
and that ‘‘this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in 
the whole world, for a testimony to all nations” (xxiv. 14). 
In St. Mark, He speaks in a similar tone: ‘ You shall stand 
before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony unto 
them”. But “first,” before the advent of the Son of Man, 
‘the Gospel must be preached to all nations” (Mark xm. 
9-10). In St. Mark also, Jesus praises the woman who at 
Bethany poured over His feet a vessel of perfume. ‘‘ Amen 
I say to you, wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in 


1 Loisy, ‘‘ Evang. Synop.” vol. u. pp. 775-6. ΜΕΙΝΕΒΊΖ, p. 111 
and foll. 


94 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be 
told for a memorial of her” (xiv. 9). 

In this conflict of texts that are thus pitted one against 
the other, is it not wiser to seek a broader basis for the judg- 
ment we have to pass ? 

A sure element of solution is given us by the narrative 
of the cure of the centurion’s son at Capharnaum. ‘This 
centurion is not a Jew, since he is a soldier. But Jesus 
grants his request, because of his faith which He admired: 
((1 have not found so great faith in Israel’’ (Matt. vir. 10 ; 
Luke vi. 9). St. Matthew adds: “πᾶ say to you that 
many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit 
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom 
of Heaven” (vit. 11). Why should not Jesus have spoken 
in that manner? Had not the Baptist said before: ‘“‘ Think 
not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our 
father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones 
to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. m1. 9). Similar 
affirmations in regard to the calling of the Gentiles to salva- 
tion may be found in every page of the prophets; the post- 
exilian Messianism is filled with them, alone they account 
for proselytism.! If Jesus is the Messias and knows He is 
the Messias, why, contrary to the Scriptures, should He 
have excluded the Gentiles? 

Again, did Jesus, in the course of His preaching, find 
no occasion to proclaim Israel’s obduracy? Like John the 
Baptist, did He not affirm, many a time, that the axe was 
laid to the root of the tree! Who then in default of Israel 
shall inherit the kingdom? Henceforth the preaching of the 
Gospel appears subject to no restriction ; and such does it appear 
in the parable of the sower, in which the sower starts to sow, 
without asking himself whether the land is Jewish or not. 
“The good ground that received the seed, this is he that 
heareth the word and understandeth” (Matt. x11. 23). In 
the parable of the cockles, ‘“‘ He that soweth the good seed is 
the Son of Man, and the field is the world” (Matt. x11. 37).” 


1Hotrzmann, ‘‘ Neut. Theologie,” vol. 1. p. 73. Laaraner, ‘* Mes- 
sianisme,” pp. 268, 285. MEINERTZ, p. 17 and foll. 

2 As to the parables that may be understood of the Church, the 
reader may consult Dom G. Dotan, ‘‘The Church in the Parables,” in 
A. H. Maruew’s ‘‘ Keclesia or the Church of Christ” (London, 1906), 
pp. 1-19. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 95 


From these two observations we may infer that, in the 
Messianic plan of Jesus, the Gospel is not restricted to Israel, 
especially to that Israel which rebels against Him: Israel’s 
privilege consists only in this that the Gospel message is 
brought to it first, according to the words of Jesus to the 
Cananzan woman: ‘Suffer first the children to be filled” 
(Mark vi. 27). The preaching of Jesus Himself is in fact 
confined to Galilee and to Jerusalem. He knows He has 
been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt. xv. 
94) and to them only. This is why the sheep of Israel 
appear alone in the foreground of the Gospel. But this 
does not exclude a background, that of the Gentile world. 
The scruples which the Apostles will experience later on as 
to ‘passing over to the Gentiles’? may be easily accounted 
for by the extreme boldness which such a step implies on 
the part of a Jew; but they are based on no word of the 
Master. On the contrary, even without having recourse to 
this or that parable, as to the parables of the wicked husband- 
man or of those who were invited to the wedding, or deducing 
from them that the Saviour had in view the rejection of 
Israel and the calling of the Gentiles, it suffices for us to 
affirm that the Gospel is not conditioned by any idea of race ; 
every man is our neighbour; the disciples are the children 
of the Father who is in Heaven, and who “maketh His sun 
to rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the just 
and the unjust” (Matt. v. 45). 

We conclude, then, that the message of Jesus is limited 
neither as regards time by the belief in the near advent of 
the end of all things, nor as regards mankind by the exclu- 
sion of the Gentiles. As to the notion of the Church, it is 
implied in the separation which Jesus marks so distinctly 
between those who follow Him and those who do not, the 
former becoming the flock of which He is the shepherd. 
The essential character of this flock is not that of an enthu- 
siastic and individualistic Christianity without bond or rule ; 
this is rendered quite clear by the grant of powers made by the 
Saviour to His Apostles, and first of all to Peter, their leader.’ 


1Tn the ‘‘ Zeitschrift fiir die neutestam. Wissenschaft,’ 1907, pp. 163- 
89, M. J. Krevensitnn has made strenuous attempts to prove that Matt. 
xvi. 17-19 is a reply made by the mother-Church of Jerusalem to the ac- 


96 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


count they had received of the Antiochian conflict, as given in St. Paul’s 
Epistle to the Galatians, Gal. τι. 2-10. The Tu es Petrus, thus understood, 
was the charter of the legitimacy of the mother-Church! Peter repre- 
sented the Church of Jerusalem and her rights against St. Paul’s pre- 
tensions. According to the same writer, the scene which is reported 
as having taken place at Cxsarea Philippi is not at all historical, though 
the narrative belongs to the collection of those logia which—as he thinks 
—formed the Gospel of the mother-Church. This narrative began to 
spread abroad, probably soon after the date of the Epistle to the Galatians 
—hence after the year 50—but certainly before the destruction of Jeru- 
salem in the year 70. Ishould not have even mentioned this paradoxical 
view, which is not to be taken seriously, were it not the symptom of a 
reaction against the view—just as paradoxical—of M. Resch. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE INFANT CHURCH (contmuzp). 


WE have discovered in a number of texts anterior to St. 
Paul’s captivity, the existence of a Christian community 
separated from Judaism and made up of converts, most of 
whom do not come from Judaism and have neither its 
culture nor its spirit. This Roman-Hellenic community 
of Christians is Catholicism already realized. Its character- 
istic features, which we have found clearly manifested in 
those sources, exhibit themselves, as we are about to see, 
with still greater precision and completeness in a series of 
testimonies which begin with the Epistles of St. Paul’s 
captivity (57-62 A.D.), and come to a close with the Epistles 
of St. Ignatius of Antioch (about 110). 


I; 


The distinction, clearly made in the first Epistle to the 
Thessalonians between the governing church and the church 
that is governed (1 Thess. v. 13) is marked in the Epistle 
to the Philippians with an unexpected precision. We read 
in the inscription of the Epistle: ‘‘ Paul and Timothy, the 
servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus, 
who are at Philippi, and to the bishops and deacons, grace 
and peace’! 

For the first time there appears in the Christian litera- 


1Phil. 1: πᾶσιν τοῖς ἁγίοις... τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις σὺν ἐπισκό- 
ποις καὶ διακόνοις... The predicate ἅγιοι applied to the Christians is 
borrowed from the Old Testament, according to which Israel is a holy 
nation, and the Israelites are saints, because they belong to God (Exod. xrx. 
6; Deut. vit. 6, etc.). Up to the middle of the second century the faith- 
ful call themselves ἅγιοι ; later on this appellation is reserved to the 
Church. Harwnack, ‘ Mission,” vol. τ. pp. 340. KarrensuscH, vol. 
1. p. 699. 

97 7 


98 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


ture the name of the office that succeeds to the office of the 
Apostolate; if the community of the saints of Philippi has 
its servants, διάκονοι, it has especially its ἐπίσκοποι, a 
name which implies some primacy.? Saints, episcopi and 
deacons form, all together, one and the same ἐκκλησία 
(Philip. tv. 15). Paul entreats them to have but one mind, 
one love, one soul;* and to guard against the false apostles 
who would compel them to be circumcised,’ for ‘‘ we are the 
true circumcision, who in spirit serve God, and glory in 
Christ Jesus, not having confidence in the flesh” (11. 2-3). 
He encourages them to be without blame in the midst of a 
perverse and corrupt generation, where they shine as torches, 
since they ‘‘ hold the word of life”’ (11. 15-16). 

To judge only from the few texts at our disposal, we 
might say that the formation of the hierarchy shows itself 
αὖ Philippi more advanced than elsewhere. But no local 
circumstance accounts for this development, which is soon 
to manifest itself the same everywhere. 

The Epistle to the Colossians and that to the Ephesians 
show that the churches of Asia are organized like those of . 
Macedonia and of Achaia.’ The name “ Church”’ serves to 


Rom. xvi. 1. Paul had already mentioned a deaconess at Cenchre, 
near Corinth. LieHtroor, ‘‘ Christian Ministry,” pp. 16-17. Lightfoot 
shows (p. 14) that the function of the Christian διάκονος does not originate 
in that of the hazan or servant of the synagogue, but is an office alto- 
gether new. The hazan was the beadle of the synagogue, and also the 
schoolmaster who taught the children how to read. Cf. A. Rosryson, 
art. ‘‘ Deacon and Deaconess,” in the ‘‘ Encyce. Biblica”’. 

2 Prat, pp. 488-94. Like the word ἐκκλησία, the word ἐπίσκοπος is 
common to Christian terminology and to the terminology of the Greek 
civil institutions. But the Christian office was not derived from its 
Greek analogue. Cf. (against Hatch and Harnack) A. Rosryson, art. 
‘¢ Bishop” in the ‘‘ Encyc. Biblica’”’. 

3 Philip. 11.2: τὸ αὐτὸ φρονῆτε, τὴν αὐτὴν ἀγάπην ἔχοντες, σύνψυχοι, 
τὸ ἕν φρονοῦντες. 

4Philip. mr. 2: ‘‘ Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers and of 
their mutilation’’. Cf. Gal. v.12. We find in both Epistles the same 
adversaries of St. Paul, also the same tone in St. Paul’s expressions : he 
retorts against them the insults they fling at Christians who, like all 
Gentiles, are for them mere dogs, 1.6. an impure set of men (compare in 
Matt. xv. 22 and foll. the episode of the Cananzean woman). 

5 About the authenticity of these two Epistles, cf. Τὶ K. Assorr, 
‘Ephesians and Colossians’’ (Edinburgh and New York, 1897), intro- 
duction. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 99 


designate the assembly of the faithful of one and the same 
city, Laodicea for instance: ‘‘Salute the brethren who are 
at Laodicea,”’ Paul writes to the Colossians, ‘‘and Nymphas, 
and the church that is in his house. When this epistle 
shall have been read with you, cause that it be read also in 
the church of Laodicea”’ (Col. Iv. 15-16). Paul speaks of 
psalms and canticles which the faithful sing together; he 
wishes that the faithful of Colosse should mutually teach 
and admonish one another;! he exhorts them to act with 
wisdom towards those who are outside the Church (οἱ ἔξω, 
EVA Je 

The Church of Colosse has been evangelized, not by Paul, 
but by Epaphras, who has also devoted himself unsparingly 
to the churches of Laodicea and of Hierapolis (Col. Iv. 13): 
Paul calls Epaphras the διάκονος τοῦ χριστοῦ, but here the 
word διάκονος signifies probably simply missionary.2 The 
Colossians must abide in the faith they have received, in the 
faith as it has been taught them.? Let them beware lest 
any one lead them astray ‘“‘by philosophy and vain deceit, 
according to the tradition of men, according to the elements 
of the world, and not according to Christ”’ (11. 8). 

In this severe formula is comprised all that Paul deems 
the contrary of the truth according to Christ which he 
preaches and which Epaphras also preaches ; for he is sure 
he has regarding the Gospel the same ideas as Epaphras. 
The “elements of the world” are the popular errors of the 
Gentiles ; the ‘‘empty and deceitful philosophy” designates 
here some beginning of Gnosticism; the “tradition of 
men” (παράδοσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων) means the teachers of this 
philosophy. Itis easy to infer from these data that the 
errors against which St. Paul warns the Colossians belong 
to some Judwo-Greek syncretism, of an ascetical and specu- 


1Col. m1. 16; Eph. v. 19. 

500]. 1.7. Paul gives himself the title of διάκονος (Col. 11. 23), and 
he gives it also to Tychicus (Eph. vr. 21). 

*Col. 1.7: ὡς mapeddBere . .. καθὼς ἐδιδάχθητε. This is the notion 
of the παράδοσις, which is fundamental with St. Paul. Cf. Col. τ. 7 (καθὼς 
ἐμάθετε amo, Erappa). 1 Cor. x1.2 (καθὼς παρέδωκα ὑμῖν ras παραδύσεις 
karéxere). 1 Thess. 1v. 1; 1 Cor. xv. 1, 2, x1. 23; Gal. 1. 9, 12; Phil. 
Iv. 9. 


γ (le 


100 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


lative kind! “Τῇ you be dead with Christ from the ele- 
ments of this world, why do you subject yourselves to or- 
dinances, as living in the world?” Some fasten upon you 
precepts of abstinence, which have indeed some appearance 
of wisdom, of humility, of contempt of the body, but they are 
in truth, “‘ precepts and teachings of men”.? The Gospel on 
the contrary is a precept and teaching of God. 

It is in Christ you have believed, Paul says to the 
Ephesians, ‘‘after you had heard the word of truth, the 
gospel of your salvation: in whom also believing you were 
signed with the holy spirit of promise, who 15 the pledge of 
our inheritance”? (ΕΗ. τ. 13). We find always the same 
method: the preaching of the Gospel, the birth of faith in 
the faithful, baptism, the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. 
Through baptism, the faithful rise from the death of sin toa 
life which is the life of Christ. The Gospel is the Gospel of 
salvation, since we are saved through faith (1.8). Formerly 
the faithful of Ephesus to whom Paul writes, and likewise 
all the faithful of Asia to whom his Epistle is addressed, 
‘“were called uncircumcision by that which is called circum- 
cision”; for they were ‘‘aliens from the conversation of 
Israel’’; they were ‘‘ without hope and without God (ἄθεοι) 
in this world.”* But now, they are “made nigh by the 


1Lacurroot, ‘Colossians,’ pp. 71-111, and Prat, pp. 391-98, in 
their estimate of this first apparition of Gnosticism in the field of Christian 
propaganda, consider that Gnosticism was independent of Christianity and 
preceded it; it had attempted to build up Jewish syncretisms, before it 
attempted to do the same for Christianity. W.Bovussur, ‘‘ Hauptprobleme 
der Gnosis ”’ (Géttingen, 1907), pp. 5-7. 

300]. m. 20: εἰ ἀπεθάνετε σὺν Χριστῷ ἀπὸ τῶν στοιχείων τοῦ κόσμου, 
τί ὡς ζῶντες κόσμῳ δογματίζεσθε; . . . 22, κατὰ τὰ ἐντάλματα καὶ διδασκαλίας 
τῶν ἀνθρώπων. KF. Cumont, ‘‘ Les religions orientales dans le paganisme 
romain ”’ (Paris, 1906), p. 248. ‘‘ All writers agree with Firmicus Maternus 
in acknowledging that heathens worshipped the elements. This word 
meant not only the four simple substances whose opposition and various 
combinations produce the phenomena of the material world, but also the 
stars and, as a whole, the principles of all heavenly and earthly bodies.”’ 
However, F. Prat, p. 252, remarks that for St. Paul (Gal. rv. ὃ, 9; 
Col. 11. 8, 20) the ‘‘ elements of the world ” signify elementary doctrines, 
like the alphabet (στοιχεῖα) which is taught to children. 

3 The word ἄθεος is not found in the LXX and is found nowhere but 
here in the whole New Testament. St. Paul means that the Gentiles, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 101 


blood of Jesus Christ,” for Christ has overthrown the wall 
of separation that was raised between the circumcised and 
the uncircumcised: ‘‘He hath made both peoples one. . 
He makes the two in Himself into a new man... . He 
reconciles both to God inone body by the cross.”’ The same 
peace is brought to the uncircumcised who were afar, and 
to the circumcised who were near: henceforth both have 
access to the Father ‘‘in one and the same Spirit”. The 
uncircumcised are no longer strangers and pilgrims, but 
citizens of one and the same city, members of the house of 
God, ‘‘ built upon the foundation of the apostles and pro- 
phets, Jesus Curist himself being the chief-corner stone: 
in whom all the building, being framed together, groweth 
up into an holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also 
are built together into an habitation of God in Spirit.” ἢ 
This elaborate phrase reminds us of the words of Psalm 
cxvi. 22, about the stone rejected by the builders, which 
afterwards became the corner stone of the structure: an 
image preserved in a logion of Christ.2 A building is 
being raised, of which Jesus is the corner stone, and the 
Apostles and Prophets of the Gospel, the foundation. The 
faithful are built on this foundation, ἐποικοδομηθέντες, they 
are bound together in the building συνοικοδομεῖσθε," and the 
whole edifice is ‘‘a holy temple in the Lord,” a dwelling of 


who adore the “‘ elements,’’ do not know God. Harwnacr, ‘‘ Der Vorwurf 
des Atheismus ”’ (1905), pp. 3-4. 

1 Eph. τι. 11-22. The uncircumcisediwere excluded from τῆς πολιτείας 
τοῦ Ἰσραήλ, they were ξένοι as regards the people of God; Christ has 
made τὰ ἀμφότερα ἕν ; Christ has created τοὺς δύο ἐν αὐτῷ εἰς ἕνα καινὸν 
ἄνθρωπον, aman made up of body and of spirit: he reconciles to God 
τοὺς ἀμφοτέρους ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι, which body is His own. Both have access 
to God, ἐν ἑνὶ πνεύματι. Henceforth there are no more ξένοι, no more 
πάροικοι, but only συνπολῖται. It should be noticed how the two notions, 
the notion of a visible city and that of a mystical body, penetrate each 
other. As to the right of citizenship and the foreigners dwelling in 
Greek cities, cf. CHapot, ‘‘ Prov. d’Asie,”’ p. 148 and foll. 

2 Mark. xm. 10; Matt. xx1. 42; Luke xx. 17. Cf. Acts 1v. 11 and 
Pete wef. 

*Cf. Heb. 11. 6: χριστὸς... οὗ οἶκος ἐσμεν ἡμεῖς. The author of 
the Epistle to the Hebrews means that henceforth the Christians are, to 
the exclusion of the Jews, the house of God, the people of God. For St. 
Paul, the new house of God is still being built : this is the meaning of 
the word οἰκοδομή, in contrast with οἶκος. 


102 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


God in spirit. The image conveyed by the word οἰκοδομή 
which loses its peculiar force in the Latin word aedificatio, 
is very dear to St. Paul, who uses it in its full meaning: he 
writes to the Romans that the fact of his having preached 
the Gospel everywhere, from Jerusalem to Illyricum, without 
having ever visited them, is to be accounted for by his set 
purpose to preach the Gospel where the name of Christ had 
not been as yet invoked, ‘lest I should build upon another 
man’s foundation” (Rom. xv. 20). Paul applies the image 
of οἰκοδομή not to the conversion or progress of each one of 
the faithful individually but to the collective building up or 
“‘ edification,” such as is the founding of a church, its in- 
struction and correction, and still more to the growth of faith 
in the whole world. 

A building, a city—these are imperfect analogies, since 
the Apostle wishes to portray the organic and living unity 
of a people whose members do not form a race joined to- 
gether by ties of flesh and blood. Paul has in view the 
unity of the Spirit who lives in every Christian: nor 
does that content him, and he makes bold to conceive the 
unity as one of body, the faithful being only the members 
of the body, and the body being Christ Himself! Through 
the faith they receive, and through baptism, circumcised and 
uncircumcised form together one single body, one and the 
same new man: Jews and Greeks become ‘‘members of the 
same body” (σύσσωμα, Eph. ut. 6). 

This body, which is the Church, has Jesus Christ for its 
head.? Paul analyses the image he has thus conceived. He 
knows, and he has told the Colossians (Col. 11. 19), that the 
body receives from the head its normal increase by means of 
the bonds and joints through which it is united to the head. 
Writing to the Ephesians (Eph. tv. 15-6), he insists on this 
thought, that from the head the body receives its harmony, 


1This image of the body of Christ, applied to the Church, had 
already been used by St. Paul. Rom. xm. 4-5; 1 Cor. x1. 12, 27. 

2 Eph. τ. 22-3: αὐτὸν ἔδωκεν κεφαλὴν ὑπὲρ πάντα τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, ἥτις 
ἐστὶν τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ, τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ τὰ πάντα ἐν πᾶσιν πληρουμένου. For 
the meaning of this difficult text, see Prat, p. 422. God gave Christ as 
the supreme head (ὑπὲρ πάντα) to the Church which is His body, the com- 
plement of Him who is fully completed in all His members. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 103 


its organic unity and energy, and its growth. Thus the 
faithful must grow up ‘fin Him who is the head, even Christ”’. 
And here is another point of view. The man and the 
woman united in wedlock are two in one flesh: but the hus- 
band is the head of the woman, and likewise ‘‘ Christ is the 
head of the Church, whose Saviour He is’! Thus the 
Church comes to be personified: she is, as it were, the 
spouse of Christ. ‘‘ Christ loved the Church, and delivered 
himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by 
the laver of water in the word of life, that he might present 
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, 
or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without 
blemish.” 2 This Church, this mystical body, this mystical 
Christ, is not a being subsisting apart from the members of 
which it is made up: it is a number which increases day by 
day, unit by unit: hence the part of the Word and that of 
Baptism. Still, taken as a whole, this number is something 
that is one and organized; something that is living and 
visible, like a spouse; indeed, something that is sanctified 
and glorious and indefectible, lke a holy and spotless 
spouse. 

Unity and newness, and all this both mystical and tang- 
ible. ‘‘ Lie not one to another: stripping yourselves of the 
old man with his deeds, and putting on the new, him who 
is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of him 
that created him; where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, 
circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond 
nor free. But Christ is all, and inall.”* Elsewhere Paul had 


1 Eph. v. 23: ἀνήρ ἐστιν κεφαλὴ τῆς γυναικὸς ὡς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ 
τῆς ἐκκλησίας, αὐτὸς σωτὴρ τοῦ σώματος. 

*Kph. v. 25-7: ἵνα αὐτὴν ἁγιάσῃ καθαρίσας τῷ λούτρῳ τοῦ ὕδατος ἐν 
ῥήματι. .. ἵνα ἢ ἁγία καὶ ἄμωμος. The meaning of the word ῥήματι is 
rather obscure. Some commentators understand it of the baptismal for- 
mula. Many see in it an allusion to the preaching of the Gospel, by 
which faith is begotten in our souls. In support of this latter view, 
which we think preferable, see Rom. x. 17. 

’The mention of the ‘‘Scythians” marks the belief which even 
at this early date obtained, that Christianity had already been preached 
everywhere. This is an important point, for it shows that the notion 
of Catholicity is very closely connected with the notion of Gospel, of 
κήρυγμα : the Gospel is for all mankind, and all mankind has already 
heard it. Col. τ. 6: τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ παρὸν εἰς ὑμᾶς καθὼς καὶ ἐν παντὶ τῷ 


104 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


already made a distinction between the interior and the ex- 
terior man: the former being renewed day after day, whilst 
the latter falls away daily: to be a Scythian or a Greek or a 
Jew, is something exterior: but one and the same inner char- 
acter unites those separated, dissimilar, and hostile peoples: 
it reconciles them and binds them all together. ‘Be care- 
ful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; one 
body and one Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
one God and father of all, who is above all, [working] through 
all, [dwelling] in all,” i.e. all those who have been reconciled 
to Him through Jesus Christ. 

In his “History of Dogma,’ Harnack has these 
words: “The mere fact that from nearly the beginning 
of Christendom, its members reflected and speculated not 
only about God and Christ, but also about the Church, 
teaches us how profoundly the Christian consciousness was 
convinced that the Christians were a new people, the people 
of God”. Harnack prefers, it is true, to postpone this 
conscious recognition to the time of the Epistle of St. 
Clement of Rome and of the Epistle of St. Polycarp of 
Smyrna: but we have just learnt from St. Paul that, before 
the year 60, 1.6. before the dying out of the first Christian 
generation, the Christians knew that they formed a body: 
their ‘‘speculations”’ then concerning that Divine creation 
which they believed the Church to be, had already forced 
themselves upon them. ‘“‘ These speculations of the earliest 
period of Gentile Christianity about Christ and the Church, 
as inseparable correlative ideas, are of the greatest import- 
ance, for they have absolutely nothing Hellenic in them, 
but rather are the outcome of the Apostolic tradition.” 2 

The Church that is the object of those speculations, is 
not the heavenly Church, nor merely the ‘‘ mystical body ”’. 
Harnack is in error when, under the pretext that “on earth, 
the members of the Church are dispers.d rather than united,” 


κόσμῳ. Id. 23: τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τὸ κηρυχθὲν ἐν πασῇ τῇ κτίσει τῇ ὑπὸ τὸν 
οὐρανόν. The same thought is found in 1 Tim. mr. 6, and still better in 
Apoe. vir. 9. 

Eph. tv. 3-6. See the whole excellent chapter in Prat, pp. 417-33, 
‘‘)’Eglise, corps mystique du Christ ”’. 

*““ Dogmengeschichte,’”’ vol. 1. p. 144. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 105 


he affirms that the unity of the Church was not visible upon 
earth; and that it existed only in as far as it was to be one 
day effected ‘‘in the Kingdom of Christ’’.! 

To these statements of Harnack’s we may reply that the 
Jews of the Dispersion, even though dispersed, still belonged 
to one visible Israel. Do not the texts we have adduced 
show that the unity of the dispersed Christians is just as 
real as that of the Jews? If it is spiritual in its source 
which is faith, salvation, the Spirit, it is visible in its 
members, who are baptized with a visible baptism, grouped 
into visible communities, and communities united with one 
another so as to form one race (γένος), as manifest to the 
world as the Greek or the Jewish race. As to the heavenly 
Church, she is just as distinct from the visible Christian 
community, as the Jewish people was from the heavenly 
Jerusalem. 

* * 
* 

Let us suspend for a while the study of the Pauline 
Epistles to make a study of the Didaché. ‘This does not 
mean that, in our estimation, this document must be dated 
from about the year 60, although we believe, with Funk, 
that it certainly belongs to the last decades of the first Chris- 
tian century. But it testifies to thoughts and institutions 
that are unquestionably primitive, and the general view it 
gives us is complete enough to explain and set in their proper 
place the fragmentary details we may gather later on.? 

We shall be near the truth in supposing that the document 
in question draws its inspiration, at least in its ethical part, 
from that Jewish moralism of which the Epistle of St. James 
is so remarkable an echo—a spiritual condition very similar 
to that of the class of proselytes called φοβούμενοι τὸν θεόν. 
No mention is made of ‘‘ wisdom,” any more than in the 
Epistle of St. James; or of the ‘“‘ Law,” but much of the 


1As regards the heavenly Church or the heavenly Jerusalem, cf. 
‘* Apoc.’’ xxi. 2 and Swerr’s note, ‘‘ Apoe.’’ in loc. The Jews, although 
they were an earthly nation, expected nevertheless the heavenly Jeru- 
salem: ‘IV Esdr.” x. 27; ‘‘ Apoc. Baruch,’’ 1v. 3; ‘‘Orac. Sibyll.” v. 
420, ete. 

2 BaRDENHEWER, ‘‘ Geschichte der altk. Litteratur,”’ vol. 1. (Freiburg, 
1902), pp. 78-80. H. Hemmer, ‘‘ Doctrine des apdtres’’ (Paris, 1907), 
pp. XXVI.-XXXV. 


106 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


‘fear of God”’. The Christian must teach ‘‘ the fear of God ”’ 
to his children, from their infancy (Did. tv. 9). He must 
avoid giving orders with sharpness to his servants ‘‘ who 
hope in the same God,” lest, through ill-usage, he may turn 
them away from ‘“‘fearing God” (Iv. 10). These precepts, 
which are Jewish in spirit and in expression, may have been 
taken from a kind of ethical catechism used by the prose- 
lytes. 

On this Jewish moralism is superimposed a Christianity 
that has none of that charismatic enthusiasm which, judg- 
ing from a few texts, we might think was the predomi- 
nant, and all-compelling feature of primitive Christian com- 
munities: on the contrary, this Christianity is made up 
entirely of distinct and peremptory precepts based on the 
word of the Lord: ‘‘ Your prayers and alms and all your 
deeds so do, as ye have it in the Gospel of our Lord” (xv. 
4), ‘Po thou in no wise forsake the commandments of 
the Lord; but thou shalt keep what thou hast received, 
neither adding thereto nor taking away therefrom” (Iv. 19). 
Individual inspiration—even should it come from the Holy 
Ghost—is subordinated to commands that have been handed 
down, received, and established, and are supreme. ‘‘ Who- 
soever . . . cometh and teacheth you all these things that 
have been said here, receive him ; whoso teacheth a different 
and destructive doctrine, receive him not” (ΧΙ. 1-2), There 
was then a διδαχή, a teaching, already determined and de- 
fined, a teaching which admitted of no opposition." 

Whilst the Epistle of St. James is addressed “‘to the 
twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion,” the ‘‘ Didaché ”’ is 
addressed to the Gentiles. But this “‘Didaché” is the 
“‘Didaché ”’ of the Lord, i.e. of Jesus Christ, and the twelve 
Apostles are entrusted with its announcement. ‘The office 
assigned to the Apostles is that of announcing and attesting 
the doctrine of Him who alone teaches. The Twelve are con- 
sidered no longer as sent to the twelve tribes: their message 
is for the ἔθνη whom St. Paul had formerly reserved to him- 
self, when leaving the circumcised to the care of the Twelve. 


1 DosscHitz, p. 196 and foll., p. 205 and foll., draws the reader’s 
attention to these ‘‘ Catholicising’’ tendencies: it is true he assigns to 
the ‘‘ Didaché’’and to the Pastoral Epistles a later date than we do. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 107 


The centre of gravity of Christianity is thus displaced: 
nevertheless, the principle of authority remains the same. 

Again, the ‘“‘Didache’’ bears witness to the fact that 
Christianity is not only an ethical rule and a religious faith, 
but also an organized worship: it has its stated fasts on 
Wednesdays and Fridays: ‘‘ Let not your fasts be with the 
hypocrites; for they fast on Mondays and Thursdays” 
(vi. 1), which amounts to saying, Do not fast on the 
same days as the Jews, and shows how deep was the separa- 
tion between the Christians and the Jews. The ‘ Didaché ” 
continues in the same strain: ‘‘ Neither pray as the hypo- 
crites, but as the Lord commanded in His Gospel”’ (VIII. 2) ; 
then it gives the text of the Lord’s Prayer, which Christians 
are expected to say three timesaday. Elsewhere (vu. 1-4) 
the ‘‘ Didache ” describes the rite of the baptism ‘‘ into the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. 
Further on (ΙΧ. 1-x. 7) it gives a description of the Eucharist 
in which those alone must be allowed to share ‘‘ who have 
been baptized into the name of Jesus” (1x. 5). The Huchar- 
ist is celebrated in common, every Sunday (ΧΙΥ. 1). It sets 
before us then a reserved and sacramental worship, in which 
no one is allowed to take part, save after an initiation which 
is also sacramental. 

Moreover, some features stand out which were merely in- 
dicated in the Pauline Epistles of the Captivity. The chief 
of these is the local and settled hierarchy, in contrast with 
the itinerant missionaries: ‘‘Appoint, therefore, for your- 
selves, episcopi and deacons worthy of the Lord, men meek, 
and not lovers of money, sincere and proved; for they render 
to you the service of prophets and teachers”’. 

The community raises, by way of election, some of its 
members to the episcopate and to the diaconate. ‘The 


1“ Tidaché,” xv. 1: Χειροτονήσατε οὖν ἑαυτοῖς ἐπισκόπους Kal διακόνους 
ἀξίους τοῦ κυρίου... ὑμῖν yap λειτουργοῦσι καὶ αὐτοὶ τὴν λειτουργίαν τῶν 
προφητῶν καὶ διδασκάλων.---Τὴθ verb χειροτονεῖν is not synonymous with 
χεῖρας ἐπιτιθέναι, and means to choose with raised hands, to appoint by 
suffrage. The word λειτουργία has the indefinite meaning of service, 
munus : Philip. τι. 25; Heb. vit. 2; Rom. x1. 6 and xv. 16. It denotes 
also the priestly service in the temple: Luke 1. 23; Heb. vit. 6, 1x. 21. 
Regarding the civil offices of Greek cities, called also liturgies, cf. CHaPpor, 
** Province d’Asie,’’ p. 265 and foll. 


108 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


community elects: hence it is not a supernatural charism 
that designates and invests; nay, the community is not in- 
vited to take into account such extraordinary gifts of the 
Spirit, since the ‘‘Didache” enjoins the faithful to prize 
chiefly the moral attainments of those they choose, their 
kindness, sincerity, disinterestedness: they must be dedo- 
κιμασμένοι, i.e. nen whose worth is vouched for by the judg- 
ment of all, as is observed in the election of the magistrates of 
Greek cities. The community elects those chosen, for itself 
(ἑαυτοῖς), for its local service, and not for a universal ministry. 
It chooses the episcopi and the deacons, first for the liturgical 
ministry previously described, the breaking of bread, cele- 
brated on Sunday. The close connexion between that 
ministration and the election of episcopi and deacons is 
signified, as Funk justly remarked, by the conjunction οὖν 
which joins together the two developments.’ 

Before becoming a tradition that is maintained, Chris- 
tianity is a “‘ word” that is propagated. How invoke him in 
whom one does not as yet believe; and how believe in him 
of whom one has not as yet heard? ‘‘ Remember your 
prelates, who have spoken the word of God to you,” says the 
Hpistle to the Hebrews?; and the ‘‘Didaché”: ‘ My child, 
him that speaketh to thee the word of God remember night 
and day; and thou shalt honour him as the Lord; for where 
the word of the Lord is uttered, there is the Lord”’ (Iv. 1). 
Making its own these words of the “‘ Didaché,” the Epistle 
of Barnabas will say later on: ‘‘Thou shalt love, as the 
apple of thine eye, every one that speaketh to thee the 
word of the Lord”. When enumerating in the Epistle to 
the Ephesians the various offices God had given to the 
Church, St. Paul had already mentioned the Apostles, 


1 ἐς Didaché,”’ x1. 11, contains a rather obscure passage: ‘‘ Every pro- 
phet proved true, doing [what he does] unto the mystery of the Church 
in the world (ποιῶν εἰς μυστήριον κοσμικὸν ἐκκλησίας), yet not teaching 
others to do what he himself doeth, shall not be judged by you, for it is 
for God to judge him: for so did also the ancient prophets ”’. 
Scholars have framed many bewildering hypotheses as to the meaning of 
this cosmic mystery of the Church. H. Wernet, ‘‘ Die Wirkungen des 
Geistes und der Geister im nachapostolischen Zeitalter ’’ (Freiburg, 1899), 
pp. 131-8. Funk, ‘‘ PP. apostol.” vy. 1, p. 28. Hemmer, p. XCVII.-xXCIx. 

‘Heb, xi ἡ: 3 BarnaB. ‘‘ Epistula,” xrx. 9. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 109 


prophets, evangelists, and also the pastors and the teachers.! 
The ‘‘ Didaché”’ witnesses to that sharing by the “ pastors” 
in the doctrinal government of the Church: “ Despise not ”’ 
the episcopi, and the deacons, ‘‘ for they are your honoured 
ones, like the prophets and teachers”’ (xv. 2), 

According to Harnack, the preaching of the Lord’s 
word is, in the ‘“‘ Didacht,” the exclusive function of the 
itinerant missionaries (Apostles, prophets, and teachers): he 
recalls the indubitable fact that, unlike the episcopi and the 
deacons, these missionaries were not chosen by the local 
churches: but perhaps he has failed to give its full value 
to the fact that, in the ‘‘ Didache,” the local church is the 
judge of the credit to be given to these itinerant mission- 
aries. We have already seen how St. Paul subordinated the 
charisms first to the received faith, and then to the edifica- 
tion of the community: an even stricter subordination is im- 
posed by the “‘ Didaché”’ on the ministry of these itinerant 
preachers. Whoever comes and teaches a doctrine that 
differs from the received faith, must not be listened to (ΧΙ. 2): 
‘‘ whoever comes:”’ he is, then, a missionary from the outside, 
and the community judges him from his words. The com- 
munity has become a true and self-sufficing home : these 
missionaries must be welcomed, but only for a short while 
and when on their way. Apostles and prophets are received 
“(85 the Lord” (x1. 4); but if an apostle delays more than 
two days, “he is a false prophet” (xr. 5); and if, on leaving, 
he asks for money, “‘he is a false prophet” (σι. 6), for ‘ not 
every one that speaketh in the spirit is a prophet, but only if 
he hold the ways of the Lord: therefore by their ways shall 
the false prophet and the real prophet be known” (ΣΙ. 8). 


1 Eph. τν. 11: ἔδωκεν τοὺς μὲν ἀποστόλους, τοὺς δὲ προφήτας, τοὺς δὲ 
εὐαγγελιστάς, τοὺς δὲ ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους. There is, in this text, a 
significant grouping. In the first place St. Paul puts the Apostles and 
the prophets (just as in Eph. 11. 20, where the Apostles and prophets are 
called the foundations of the Church). In the second place, he places to- 
gether pastors and teachers. Between the first and the second group 
come the “‘ evangelists”. Here, then, the teachers seem to be subject to 
the pastors. Pastors and teachers together make up the local hierarchy. 
Cf. 1 Pet. ν. 2; 1 Tim. m1. 2: δεῖ τὸν ἐπίσκοπον . . . διδακτικὸν [εἶναι] ; 
ΠΗ 1.0. 

 “ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 280. 


110 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


The ‘‘Didaché” insists on the marks by means of which 
true prophets will be distinguished from the false, as though 
each church were daily exposed to the danger of being over- 
reached and imposed upon, as in St. Jerome’s time good 
Christians might be fleeced by the wayfaring monks, called 
Remoboth. The ‘‘ Didache” could not have affirmed more 
strongly the supremacy of the local church and of those 
who preside over it. 

This, then, is the Christianity of the ‘ Didache’’—a 
Christianity of community life and institutions, autonomous 
and authoritative—similar to the Christianity revealed to us 
by the documents of the first generation. The settled hier- 
archy is established everywhere, the wayfaring missionaries 
are subordinated to it, the great Apostles have disappeared, 
the prophets are about to disappear. Still those missionaries 
who for many years moved about from one church to the 
other,! were providential agents for the establishment of 
that unity which bound all the churches together, that unity 
the doctrinal character of which St. Paul had so forcibly ex- 
pounded. Thus, though the ‘ Didaché”’ is, on this subject 
of Christian unity, less explicit than St. Paul, with whose 
teaching it does not seem to have been at all acquainted, it 
has the same sense of unity. In its vocabulary, the word 
ἐκκλησία denotes the assembly of the faithful gathered for 
prayer (Iv. 14), and also denotes the new people which the 
Gospel has brought forth into this world, and which shall be 
one day firmly established in God’s kingdom as in its pro- 
mised land. ‘‘ Even as this broken bread was scattered over 
the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let 
Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth 
into Thy Kingdom.”? ‘‘ Remember, Lord, Thy Church, to 
deliver it from evil and make it perfect in Thy love, and to 
gather it from the four winds, to be sanctified in Thy King- 
dom which Thou hast prepared for it.”* The Christian 


1 Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,”’ vol. 1. pp. 286. 

* Did. 1x. 4: συναχθήτω σου ἡ ἐκκλησία ἀπὸ τῶν περάτων τῆς γῆς. 

5.914. x. 5: σύναξον αὐτὴν ἀπὸ τῶν τεσσάρων ἀνέμων. Cf. the Jewish 
prayers for the return of the Jews of the Dispersion to Jerusalem. 
** Psalm. Salom.” vit. 34. These few words of the ‘‘ Didaché ”’ show how 
deeply those Christians realized the spread of Christianity all over the 


THE INFANT CHURCH 1{1|1: 


community, now spread all over the world, shall be one day 
united in the kingdom of the Father: then and only then 
shall the unity be perfect; but even now, upon earth, Chris- 
tians are penetrated by the deepest sense of that unity of 


unities. 
* * 
* 


Far better than the ‘‘ Didache,” the first of the two 
Epistles that bear the name of St. Peter gives us approxi- 
mately the date of its own origin, for it was written during 
a time of persecution which, may be identified with that 
undertaken by Nero.! 

The Epistle is addressed to Christians who are not of 
Jewish birth (τ. 10) and who dwell dispersed amongst the 
Gentiles (11. 12).2. ‘‘Have your conversation good among 
the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evil- 
doers, they may by the good works, which they shall behold 
in you, glorify God in the day of visitation” (1.12). The 
will of God is that by their conduct the faithful should 
silence the foolish men who misjudge them (1. 15). 
‘‘ Have a good conscience, that, whereas they speak evil of 


world known to them, and this deep realization is met with in many 
other texts. Cf. Hermas, “Simil.” vit. 3: ‘‘ This great tree that casts 
its shadow over plains and mountains, and all the earth, is the law of 
God that was given to the whole world (δοθεὶς εἰς ὅλον τὸν κόσμον), and 
this law is the Son of God proclaimed to the ends of the earth ” (κηρυχθεὶς 
εἰς Ta πέρατα τῆς γῆς). The same thought is found in “Sim.” rx. 17. 
Later on, St. Ignatius also speaks of the bishops who are established κατὰ 
τὰ πέρατα. The uncanonical ending of St. Mark’s Gospel says that Jesus 
sent through the Apostles the message (κήρυγμα) of salvation ‘‘ from the 
Kast to the West” (ἀπὸ ἀνατολῆς καὶ ἄχρι δύσεως). 

1 Regarding the authenticity and date of St. Peter’s first Epistle, cf. 
Brac, ‘‘ Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude’ (Edinburgh, 1901), pp. 1-87. 
Cf. Harnack, ‘‘ Chronologie,”’ vol. 1. pp. 454-5. 

2The word ἐκκλησία is not used in the address, which speaks of the 
elect of Jesus Christ, of the ‘‘ Dispersion”’ in Pontus, Galatia, Cappa- 
docia and Bithynia. To my knowledge, this is the only instance of the 
Christian use of the word ‘‘ Dispersion”’. The Epistle would seem to be 
afraid to draw the reader’s attention to local churches. Likewise, in the 
subscription (v. 13), we read: ‘‘ The elect that is in Babylon,” instead 
of the Church of Rome. The ‘‘Prima Petri’’ does not use the word 
ἐκκλησία even once. On the identity of Babylon with Rome see H. 
GuNKEL in J. Weiss, ‘‘ Schriften des N.T.” (Gottingen, 1908), vol. τι, 
p- 571. 


112 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


you, they may be ashamed who falsely accuse your good 
conversation in Christ” (111.16). It is precisely on account 
of their quality and name of Christians that the faithful are 
misjudged and slandered (Iv. 16). 

Their unity, then, is manifest, and this unity is the 
unity of their faith and of their brotherhood. ‘‘You have 
purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto un- 
feigned love of the brethren, love then one another from the 
heart fervently, being begotten again, not of corruptible seed, 
but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth 
and abideth for ever” (1. 22-3). The faithful are as new- 
born children (11. 2). Jesus is for them ‘‘ the living stone,” 
and they are themselves ‘as living stones, built up into a 
spiritual house ”’.! 

Many comparisons are used, which have for their pur- 
pose to describe the organic unity of Christians, but none 
describes it better than that of the chosen people. ‘“‘ For 
you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a 
purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who 
hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light’ 
(π.. 9). In the midst of the unbelieving world and in con- 
trast with blind Judaism, Christians have shared in the 
light: they are brothers, and therefore they form one family, 
one race; but it is a race of election, one freely chosen by 
God; they are a priestly and kingly gens; they are a holy 
ἔθνος ; being converts from Gentilism, they are a new people 
of God... They are a flock which was without a shepherd, 
and which has now come back to Him who is the shepherd 
and the “‘episcopus”’ of souls, 1.6. to Christ.? When using 
these words, the Epistle has in view the faithful spread all 
over the world, not a special local community. God is 


11 Pet. τι. 4-5: λίθοι ζῶντες οἰκοδομεῖσθε οἶκος πνευματικός. 

31 Pet. τι. 9 : ὑμεῖς δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτόν (Isa. XLIt. 20), βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα 
(Exod. χιχ. 6), ἔθνος ἅγιον (ibid.), λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν (Isa. x“. 21). In 
Exod. loc. cit. the people of Israel is called ἃ people of priests, a title 
of honour and of grace ; and yet Israel has besides a special priesthood. 

31 Pet. τι. 25: ἦτε yap ὡς πρόβατα πλανώμενοι, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπεστράφητε νῦν 
ἐπὶ τὸν ποιμένα καὶ ἐπίσκοπον τῶν ψυχῶν ὑμῶν. Cf. Kzech. xxxiv. 11, 12. 
Cf. “Oracula Sibyllina ” the fragment cited by ΤΉῊΞΟΡΗΙΠΟΒ, “ Ad Autolye.” 
τι. 36: οὐ τρέμετ᾽ οὐδὲ φοβεῖσθε θεὸν τὸν ἐπίσκοπον ὑμῶν---ὅὕψιστον γνώστην 
πανεπόπτην μάρτυρα πάντων. ᾿ 


THE INFANT CHURCH 113 


the shepherd: the name episcopus, given to Him, is a re- 
miniscence of Ezekiel and also an allusion to the office of 
the episcopus in every church. 

Like St. Paul in his great Epistles, the ‘“‘ Prima Petri’”’ 
describes admirably both the newness and the unity of the 
Christian people; like St. Paul also, it does not forget the 
gifts of the Spirit who works in this new people. “As 
every man hath received grace, ministering the same one 
to another: as good stewards of the manifold grace of God”’ 
(tv. 10). As in St. Paul, the charism is granted by God for 
the welfare of the community. However the “ Prima Petri”’ 
seems to look upon it as an office, we might say as a grace 
attached to a function. Charisms are distributed to those 
who announce the word of the Lord, and to those who serve. 
‘“‘ Tf any man speak, let him speak as the logia of God”’ (id.) 
i.e. he who teaches must teach only what is from God, and 
not what is from man, or what comes from his own fancy. 
“ΤΕ any man minister, let him minister as of the strength 
which God supplieth.” We shall not force the terms of this 
antithesis, so as to see deacons in those who serve, and episcopi 
in those who speak; but on the other hand, we must at least 
grant that there are, in the local church, men filled with grace, 
whose mission it is to instruct that special Christian com- 
munity and minister to its various needs. 

Elsewhere the ‘Prima Petri” speaks more clearly on 
the same topic. ‘‘'The elders therefore among you I exhort ”’ 
(v. 1). Then it continues, in words which show that these 
presbyters are, by their office, the leaders of the community : 
‘“ Heed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of 
it not by constraint, but willingly according to God: not for 
filthy lucre’s sake, but voluntarily; neither as lording it over 
the clergy, but being made a pattern of the flock from the 
heart. And when the prince of pastors shall appear, you 
shall receive a never-fading crown of glory.”1 Here the 
fold is the local church, and has immediate pastors, who are 
called, in the Epistle, presbyters. Christ is their invisible 
leader and chief pastor (ἀρχιποίμην). They rule and ad- 


11 Pet. v. 2-4: ποιμάνατε τὸ ἐν ὑμῖν ποίμνιον τοῦ θεοῦ, . . . τύποι 
γινόμενοι τοῦ ποιμνίου. Cf. Heb. x1. 20. The expression ἀρχιποίμην is 
well known and denotes a leader of shepherds. DrissMann, p. 65. 


8 


114 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


minister: hence they may be tempted to be domineering, 
harsh, and self-seeking. 
ἜΝ 

If we have put off till now the study of the Pastoral 
Epistles, it is not because we doubt their authenticity: we 
believe they are the work of St. Paul, and the various ob- 
jections, some, not insignificant, raised against their Pauline 
origin especially on account of their style, do not seem to 
us decisive! They belong to an horizon different from that 
of the great Epistles of Paul and from that of the Epistles 
of the captivity: they constitute by themselves an homo- 
geneous, distinct, and late group; they are subsequent to all 
that we know, from other sources, of the Apostle’s life and 
belong to the last days of his hfe; but they are his work. 

Unlike the “‘ Didache,” the Pastoral Epistles are not a 
didactic treatise on ecclesiastical life: they are completely 
or almost completely silent on several points, for instance on 
Christian worship, They dwell at length on some special 
features, as though their purpose were to emphasize some 
truth which it was opportune to emphasize at that parti- 
cular time. 

In the first place, Paul insists on the authoritative 
character of faith. “Ὁ Timothy, guard the deposit,” “‘ guard 
the good deposit,’ ? for the Gospel is a deposit which—from 
this definition itseli—must suffer neither diminution nor 
addition. ‘‘Abide thou in those things which thou hast 
learned, and which have been committed to thee, knowing of 
whom thou hast learned them.’*® ‘This refers to the doc- 
trine the Apostle taught him: Paul does not hesitate to deem 
it just as sacred as ‘‘ the holy Scriptures”’ which Timothy has 
known ever since his infancy (2 Tim. 11.15). ‘‘ The things 
which thou hast heard of me before many witnesses, the same 
commend to faithful men, who shall be fit to teach others 
also”’* (2 Tim. 11. 2), 


1See the discussion in Εἰ. Prat, pp. 455-69. 

21 Tim. vi. 20: τὴν παραθήκην φύλαξον. 2 Tim. τ. 14: τὴν καλὴν 
παραθήκην φύλαξον διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου Tod ἐνοικοῦντος ἐν ἡμῖν. 

3.2. Tim, 11. 14: μένε ἑν οἷς ἔμαθες καὶ ἐπιστώθης, εἰδὼς παρὰ τίνων ἔμαθες. 

4 ΤΊ. m1. 9-11: μωρὰς ζητήσεις καὶ γενεαλογίας καὶ ἔριν καὶ μάχας νομικάς 
(disputes about the Law) . . . αἱρετικὸν ἄνθρωπον μετὰ μίαν καὶ δευτέραν 
νουθεσίαν παραιτοῦ. The word αἵρεσις is found both in the LXX and in 


THE INFANT CHURCH 115 


In fact, the Church, to whose welfare Timothy devotes 
his efforts, is open to the danger of being invaded by false 
teachers, who are now so numerous: like those condemned 
by the Epistle to the Colossians, these errors savour of some 
Judso-Greek syncretism, a kind of pre-Christian Gnosticism. 
‘Avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, 
and strivings about the law. For they are unprofitable 
and vain. A man that is a heretic, after the first and second 
admonition avoid; knowing that he that is such a one is 
subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judg- 
ment”. It is useless and unreasonable to argue with these 
mischief makers: they must be silenced.? Authority protects 
and defends the deposit of faith, by casting out of the Church 


classical Greek : it means ‘‘ choice,” and by extension ‘‘ an opinion freely 


chosen,” and hence—in a sense which implies no depreciation—a 
ΚΕ school,” or a ‘‘ party”. Thus the historian Josephus speaks of the 
Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, as being three Jewish αἱρέσεις. 
“ Antiquit.” xu. 5, 9. This is also the meaning of the word in St. Luke 
(Acts v. 17, xv. 5, xxiv. 5, 14, xxvim1. 22). In St. Paul’s Epistles, it 
signifies a culpable dissent, a schism (Gal. v. 20; 1 Cor. x1. 19). In 
this connexion JULICHER remarks (in his art. on ‘‘ Heresy” in the 
‘*Encycl. Biblica’’) that Christianity has so thoroughly adopted for her 
motto, ‘‘ You are one in Christ Jesus,” that henceforth any tendency to- 
wards individualism is looked upon with aversion, and heresy, which would 
be for a Greek philosopher a symptom of life, is for St. Paul a downright 
disorder. This is also the meaning of the word αἱρετικός in Tit. ur. 10 
which appears there for the first time and is found neither in the LXX 
nor in classical Greek. We must not fail to notice in this instance how 
the evolution of the meaning of the word implies the history of an institu- 
tion. 

1Tit. 1. 10-11 : ματαιολύγοι καὶ φρεναπάται, μάλιστα οἱ ἐκ περιτομῆς, ods 
δεῖ ἐπιστομίζειν. Cf, 1 Tim. τ. 3-4. 

21 Tim. 1.19: περὶ τὴν πίστιν ἐναυάγησαν. The Apostle designates 
by name two of them, Hymeneus and Alexander, whom he has ‘“‘de- 
livered up to Satan”. Cf. 1 Cor. v. 5. To deliver up to Satan means to 
expel from the Church of God: for to the Church of God the ‘‘ synagogue 
of Satan ” is opposed (cf. John vin. 44, and especially Apoc. τι. 9, 13, 117. 
9). The Jews also used at times to expel persons from their synagogues 
(Luke vi. 22; John 1x. 22, xm. 42, xvi. 2). Satan’s power over the 
present age is affirmed by the uncanonical ending of St. Mark, as 
given in Freer’s MS. : the Apostles say to Jesus: ‘‘ This world of wicked- 
ness and unbelief is under the control of Satan.’’ Jesus answers: ‘‘ The 
years of the power of Satan havecome toaclose.” Laaranae, ‘‘ Kyangile 
selon Saint Mare” (Paris, 1911), p. 438. 

8. * 


110 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


those Christians who ‘“‘have made shipwreck in the faith”. 
If any one teaches another doctrine, if he does not adhere 
to the wholesome words of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to 
those lessons that are according to godliness, he is blind. 
‘Speak thou the things that become sound doctrine’’.? 
This wholesome teaching is in all cases ‘‘the doctrine of 
God our Saviour” (Tit. τι. 10). 

The Epistle to Titus denounces the perverse teachers, 
“disobedient and vain talkers’”’ who are found especially 
among ‘‘them of the circumcision,” and who by a crafty and 
deceitful propagandism ‘‘ teach the things which they ought 
ποῦ. The Pastoral Epistles speak of the ‘‘circumcised”’ 
as the ‘‘ Didaché”’ speaks of the ““ hypocrites”; they make no 
mention of false apostles or of false prophets, or of Christians 
speaking in the name of the Spirit: they refer only to 
teachers who betray the wholesome teaching.* This teach- 
ing is the teaching of Jesus Christ, and the authority for its 
preservation belongs to the Apostle who writes the Hpistle, 
to the evangelist, his disciple, to whom the Epistle is ad- 
dressed, and to trustworthy men trained and taught by the 
disciple. The Church, “the house of God,” is the “ pillar 
and ground of the truth’’.® 

Here then again we find, together with sound teaching, 
the hierarchy. 

Like the ““ Didaché,” the Pastoral Epistles show us the 
hierarchy of episcopi and deacons established. The Epistle 
to the Philippians had spoken of the Episcopate as of a 
plural episcopate; the Epistle to Titus alludes to that 


11 Tim. vi. 3: εἴτις ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖ καὶ μὴ προσέρχεται ὑγιαίνουσιν 
λόγοις τοῖς τοῦ κυρίου καὶ τῇ κατ᾽ εὐσέβειαν διδασκαλίᾳ. .. . On ἑτεροδιδασ- 
καλεῖν, see 1 Tim. 1. 3. Compare the whole Epistle of St. Jude. 

2 Tit. στ. 1 : λάλει ἃ πρέπει τῇ ὑγιαινούσῃ διδασκαλίᾳ. Notice the per- 
sistence with which ithe Pastoral Epistles oppose the wholesome and 
saving doctrine to that which is corrupt: 2 Tim. 1.17; 1 Tim. νι. 4; 
Tit. 

3Tit. τ. 11: διδάσκοντες ἃ μὴ δεῖ. 

42 Tim. Iv. 3: τῆς ὑγιαινούσης διδασκαλίας οὐκ ἀνέξονται, ἀλλὰ ἑαυτοῖς 
ἐπισωρεύσουσιν διδασκάλους. 

51 Tim. mr. 15: ἐν οἴκῳ θεοῦ. . . ἥτις ἐστὶν ἐκκλησία θεοῦ ζῶντος, 
στῦλος καὶ édpaiwpa τῆς ἀληθείας. Hoxtzmann, ‘‘ Neutestamentliche 
Theologie,” vol. 11, pp. 276-8, insists strongly on the ‘‘ ecclesiasticism ” 
of all these features. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 117 


plural government in the following words: “ For this cause 
I left thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the 
things that are wanting, and shouldest establish presbyters 
in every city, as I have also appointed thee”.' These pres- 
byters are at the head of the local church, to govern and in- 
struct it: ‘‘ Let the presbyters that rule well be esteemed 
worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the 
teaching of the word” (1 Tim. v. 17). 

A word, which designates this stationary hierarchy, ap- 
pears here for the first time, πρεσβυτέριον (1 Tim. rv. 14). 
This college of presbyters is the depositary of a power 
which can be likened to no other than that of Orders. ‘To 
Timothy it is said: ‘‘ Neglect not the grace [charism]} that 
is in thee, which was given thee by prophetic designation 
with imposition of hands of the πρεσβυτέριον ᾿. ‘That pro- 
phecy intervened to point out Timothy to the Apostle and to 
the presbyters,’ is not to be wondered at. As to the laying 
on of hands, it is a gesture of blessing, borrowed from the 
earliest history of Judaism. By charism, here, a spiritual 


1Tit. τ. 5. Theodore of Mopsuestia, ‘‘In epistul. B. Pauli com- 
mentarii,” ed. SwrTE (1882), vol. mu. p. 121, recalls that at the begin- 
ning the office of presbyters and that of episcopi were one and the same, 
and that the office which later on became the episcopate was then exer- 
cised in every province and for the whole province, by an ‘‘ apostle,” as 
for instance, Titus in Crete, Timothy in Asia: the Apostle alone had the 
right to ordain. This theory of Theodore seems a mere exegetical hypo- 
thesis, framed for the purpose of accounting for the ministry of Timothy 
and Titus ; it places between the missionary-staff and the local hierarchy, 
a provincial hierarchy, all the churches of one province, Gaul, for instance, 
being considered subject to one bishop. On these words of Theodore, 
Mer. Ducuesne, ‘‘ Fastes épiscopaux de l’anc. Gaule,” vol. 1. (1894), p. 36 
and foll., relies as accounting for the late formation of episcopal dioceses 
in Gaul. We believe with Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 376, that 
Theodore’s generalization as regarding the apostle-bishop of a province (in 
contrast with a city) is a fancy, whatever the particular case of Gaul may be. 

31 Tim. tv. 14: μὴ ἀμέλει rod ἔν σοι χαρίσματος 6 ἐδόθη σοι διὰ τῆς 
προφητείας μετὰ ἐπιθέσεως τῶν χειρῶν τοῦ mpeaBurepiov. ‘The expression 
ἐπίθεσις τῶν χειρῶν is found again in Heb. νι. 2. See the note οἵ ΝΥ ἘΒΤΟΟΤΥ, 
in loc. The action of laying on hands, as signifying only an inde- 
terminate blessing, is necessarily accompanied by some determining and 
specifying word. 

3 This is the meaning suggested by 1 Tim. 1. 18. Cf. Acts xu. 1-3. 

4Of. Tertunn. ‘‘De Baptismo,” 8: ‘‘ Manus imponitur per benedic- 
tionem adyocans et invitans Spiritum sanctum. . . . Sed est hoc quoque 


118 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


gift, a πνεῦμα, is meant, but it is a gift that remains within 
the subject who has received it, and is conferred by the 
Apostle and the presbyters. Timothy on whom it has been 
conferred can in his turn confer it to others." 

Deacons are to be chosen for the purity and gravity of 
their lives, and for their disinterestedness; as we know al- 
ready from the ‘‘ Didaché,” they must be tried before being 
chosen (δοκιμαζέσθωσαν πρῶτον). They must have shown 
that they ruled their children and their home well (1 Tim. 
ur. 8-13). The episcopus—and we must notice that, whereas 
the Epistle speaks of deacons in the plural, it speaks of the 
episcopus in the singular—must be blameless and enjoy the 
respect even of those outside the fold (ἀπὸ τῶν ἔξωθεν) ; he 
must be hospitable and able to teach (id. 2); he must be 
free from the love of money; besides he must have given 
proof that he has governed his house properly and can 
command the obedience of his children, for ‘‘if a man know 
not how to rule his own house, how shall he have a care of 
the Church of God?” ? 

The Pastoral Epistles are the work of an Apostle of 
Christ, who, seeing his end approaching, confirms the in- 
stitutions established in Churches like those of Crete and of 
Asia: the institutions now established have then been sanc- 
tioned by apostolic authority. The Apostle, as we have said, 
feels that his course is run (2 Tim. Iv. 7): he gives his last 
instructions to his disciple whom he calls an evangelist (2b. 
5); but, on his death, this disciple is to be replaced only by 
the presbyteriwm of every Church. Whatever may be the 


de veteri sacramento quo nepotes suos ex Joseph Ephraim et Manassem 
Iacob capitibus impositis et intermutatis manibus benedixerit.” The 
same meaning is ascribed to the laying on of hands, as a gesture, by 
CLEMENT oF ALEx. ‘‘ Paedagog.” τη. 11 (‘‘ P.G.” vol. vim. col. 637, B.) ; 
and by the Gnostic Isidore, quoted in ‘‘ Stromat.” 11. 1 (Col. 1101). 

11 Tim. v. 22: χεῖρας ταχέως μηδενὶ ἐπιτίθει. C. Gore, ‘‘ The Ministry 
of the Christian Church” (London, 1889), p. 250, says: ‘‘ It is only a very 
arbitrary criticism which can fail to see here . . . the permanent process 
of ordination with which we are familiar in later Church history, that con- 
ception of the bestowal in ordination of a special ‘charisma,’ which at 
once carries with it the idea of a ‘ permanent character, ’iand that distinction 
of clergy and laity which is involved in the possession of a definite spirit- 
ual grace and power by those who have been ordained.” 

21 Tim. mt. 4-5. The same teaching is found in Tit. τ. 5-9, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 119 


relation existing then between the presbytervwm and the 
episcopate, and leaving aside liturgical functions, the epis- 
copate is an office of temporal administration and of teaching. 
The Church has receipts and expenses (1 Tim. v. 16): the 
episcopus must prove himself a good steward. Discipline 
must obtain in the Church: the episcopus must prove him- 
self also a good educator. Above all, the deposit of the faith 
that has been received must be upheld and defended: the 
episcopus is expected to be an effective teacher who watches 
over his flock and carefully preserves the trust committed to 
him.! 


k * 
* 


The Johannine Apocalypse is the work of a prophet, to 
whom the God of the prophetic spirits has sent His angel, to 
show His servants what must come to pass shortly (XxII. 6). 
John has heard and seen, and the angel who has shown him 
all things says to him: ‘‘I am thy fellow-servant (σύνδουλος) 
and the servant of thy brethren the prophets” (xxII. 9). 
However, judging from the tone of the rebukes and threats 
he feels able to address to the seven Churches, this prophet 
must stand in authority far above those prophets whom the 
‘“‘Didaché ” has represented as journeying from one Church 
to the other, and depending on the judgment which each 
Church passed upon them. 

The letter to the seven Churches attests the autonomy 
of each of those seven Churches. Such is the case, for in- 
stance, with the Church of Ephesus, which the prophet con- 
gratulates on hating ‘‘them that are evil” and on having 
tried “‘them who say they are apostles, and are not,” for 


1 ΤΆ is interesting to see how the critics who question the authenticity 
of the Pastoral Epistles, insist on those features in them which make 
up what HotrzmMann calls “ἃ moderately Catholic Paulinism” and “a 
sort of ecclesiasticism in fieri”. Cf. Von Sopen, in the ‘‘ Handcom- 
mentar” (Freiburg, 1891), vol. m1. pp. 162-7. (Von Soprn dates the 
Pastoral Epistles from Domitian’s age, about 81-96, at the earliest.) In 
concluding his analysis of the Pastoral Epistles, Honrzmann, ‘‘ Neut, 
Theologie,” vol. 1. p. 280, finds in them the idea of tradition, the idea 
of a visible Church in which the good and the bad are mingled together, 
the idea of the Church as a teaching authority and intermediary between 
Christ and each of the faithful, and the Church considered as an object 
of faith : in a word “‘ die ganze Katholicitiit in nuce”: It is not for us to 
contradict him, 


120 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the Church of Ephesus found them to be liars (11. 2). This 
reminds us of the rules laid down by the ‘‘ Didaché”’. This 
Church hates the Nicolaites (11. 6), whereas the Church of 
Pergamus shows indulgence to those who hold the doctrine 
of Balaam (11. 14) and the doctrine of the Nicolaites (1.15). 
As to the Church of Thyatira, she suffers the woman Jezabel, 
who claims to be a prophetess, to teach (11. 20): blessed are 
those of Thyatira, who do not share this doctrine, and have 
not known the depths of Satan (11. 24) as these false doctors 
are wont to say.!. The prophet says to the angel of the 
Church of Sardis: ‘‘ Be watchful and strengthen those who 
remain ... that are ready todie. . . . Have in mind in 
what manner thou hast received and heard; keep and do 
penance” (11. 2-3). Balaam and Jezabel are symbolical 
names that stand for errors similar to, if not identical with, 
those of the Nicolaites. Error has made its way into these 
inexperienced and impressionable communities: and error 
is a kind of fornication which the Son of God holds in ab- 
horrence and will chastise, ‘‘ and all the churches shall know 
that I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts” (11. 23). 

Perishing churches may be reformed by such extraordinary 
interventions of the Spirit, but an everyday government does 
not last in that way. The Johannine Epistles follow, more 
closely than the Apocalyse, the principles and method of the 
Pastoral Epistles. We find in them, together with the 
hatred of error, the affirmation of the primacy of the teach- 
ing received “‘from the beginning” (2 John 5); for “‘ many 
seducers are gone out into the world, who confess not that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh: this is the seducer and 
the Antichrist” (4b. 7). How can any one possess God, 
unless he abides by the doctrine of Christ?? “If any man 
come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not 
into the house, nor say to him, God speed you” (δ. 10). 
‘‘ As for you, let that which you have heard from the be- 


1 An allusion to some fanciful speculations of the Nicolaites. Cf. 
1 Cor. 11. 10, in which the Spirit is said to search ‘‘ the deep things of God,” 
and Irnrn. ‘‘ Haer.” τι. 21, 2, where we are told that some Gnostics 
endeavour to fathom ‘‘ profunda Bythi”’. 

22 John 9: μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ τοῦ Xpiorod. On this HonrzmMann 
writes: ‘‘ Verse 9 is perfect evidence that the teaching of the Church 
was law to the author” (‘‘ Handcommentar,” vol. tv. p. 242). 


THE INFANT CHURCH 121 


ginning, abide in you: if that abide in you which you have 
heard from the beginning, you also shall abide in the Son, 
and in the Father. . . . These things have I written to 
you, concerning them that seduce you” (1 John τι. 24-6). 
The received doctrine is made up of Christ’s commands: 
‘“He who saith that he knoweth him, and keepeth not his 
commandments, is a liar”.1 We found similar advice in 
the ‘Didache”. ‘‘ Believe not every spirit, but try the 
spirits” to see ‘if they be of God, because many false 
prophets are gone out into the world” (2b. Iv. 1). 

The “Tertia Ioannis” testifies plainly to an authority 
which is exercised to protect the local Church against the 
spread of error. The Ancient (πρεσβύτερος), as the author 
of the “‘Tertia Ioannis” styles himself (and this is none 
other than St. John), tells a Christian named Gaius of the 
joy he experienced when some ‘“‘ brethren” came and gave 
testimony ‘‘in presence of the Church” (the Church in 
whose midst the Ancient dwells) to the charity Gaius has 
shown ‘‘to the brethren, and especially to the strangers”. 
The Ancient encourages Gaius to continue to provide for the 
travelling expenses of these itinerants, ‘‘since they went out 
for the name, taking nothing of the heathen”.? ‘These are 
genuine missionaries sent by John the Apostle and by his 
Church. These missionaries, however, have not been every- 
where so cordially received: from some Church, other than 
that of Gaius, they have been sent away. That Church 
has at its head a Christian named Diotrephes. The An- 
cient had previously written, not to Diotrephes, but to the 
local Church: Diotrephes who is fond of pre-eminence (ὁ 
φιλοπρωτεύων αὐτῶν), answered in the name of the Church, 
refusing to receive the brethren recommended by the 
Ancient, forbidding any one of the faithful to receive them, 
and expelling them from the Church. ‘‘ For this cause, if 
I come, I will bring to his remembrance his works which 
he doth, prating against us with wicked words.” * 


11 John u. 4: 6 λέγων ὅτι ἔγνωκα αὐτόν. These words seem to 
allude to some pseudo-apostles. Cf. Apoc. τι. 2. 

23 John 5, 6. The words ὑπὲρ rod ὀνόματος ἐξῆλθαν signify that 
these brethren travel for the name, i.e. for the name of Jesus. LAGRANGE, 
ες Messianisme,” p. 145, note 2. 

839 John 9-12: ἔγραψά τι (rather than ἔγραψα ἄν) τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ kT), 


122 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


We must not overemphasize the words: ‘‘ Diotrephes 
doth not receive us,” as though Diotrephes did not acknow- 
ledge the authority of the Ancient, and had broken with 
him ; since the Ancient proposes to come in person and to 
speak unsparingly to Diotrephes. Rather, we may suppose 
that, because of the intense opposition to itinerant begging 
propagandists, Diotrephes had not received even those itiner- 
ants who came recommended by a note from the Apostle: 
but Diotrephes doubtless had some right to speak in the 
name of the community. Lcclesiastical tradition loved to 
picture to itself the Apostle John surrounded by bishops he 
had placed in those Churches of which he was the founder.! 
Diotrephes is thus the first monarchical bishop whose name 
has come down to us, and the Protestant critics are very 
willing to set him against the Apostle: he stands for the 
hierarchy, the Apostle for the Spirit; the former will do 
away with the latter. . . . It would be more historical to 
ask oneself, not whether the pre-eminence of Diotrephes was 
the result of a usurpation, but whether his conduct was not 
that of a tactless person. 


ΠῚ᾿ 


With St. Clement’s Epistle we might bring to a close the 
study of the Apostolic ecclesiology, for this epistle is, in a 
sense, the term of the development of institutions and 


” 


1CLem. or ALEX. quoted by Husss. ‘“‘H. EK.” 1. 28, 6 (according 
to the ‘‘ Quis dives salvetur,” 42). Compare the statement of the Mu- 
ratorianum : John wrote the fourth Gospel ‘‘ cohortantibus condiscipulis 
et episcopis suis”; and still better Tertullian, ‘‘ Adversus Marcionem,” 
Iv. 5: ‘*Habemus et Ioannis alumnas ecclesias. Nam etsi Apocalypsim 
eius Marcion respuit, ordo tamen episcoporum ad originem recensus, in 
Toannem stabit! auctorem”. Tertullian seemingly thinks that the ordo 
episcoporum was inaugurated in Asia by the Apostle John. On the other 
hand, we know (‘‘ Exhort. castit.” 7) that he looked upon the distinction 
between the plebs and the ordo as a creation of the Church. As regards 
the difficult problem whether the angel of each of the seven Churches 
is its bishop, see SwEts, ‘‘ Apocalypse,” pp. 21-2, and Licutroor, “‘ Christ. 
Ministry,” p. 29. The last writer suggests an analogy between the 
‘‘angels ” of the Churches in the Apocalypse, and the “princes” in the 
prophecy of Daniel (x. 13, 20, 1). 


THE INFANT CHURCH 123 


ideas, to which the Apostolic documents cited bear witness ;! 
it is besides the epiphany of the Roman primacy. 

First of all, the notion of charism, which was so impor- 
tant some fifty years before, seems now to have vanished 
entirely and the word “‘charism”’ is about to assume a new 
meaning, that of the condition assigned by God to every 
man according to his social standing. Every Christian must 
be united with all his brethren by the bond of solidarity, and 
submit to his neighbour “according to the charism ap- 
pointed to him” by God. What does this mean? He 
who is strong must strengthen him who is weak, and he who 
is weak must honour him who is strong. The rich must 
be generous, the poor must pray to God in behalf of the 
rich.2, Hence strength is a charism, and so also is weakness: 
and likewise richness and poverty: as well as wisdom and 
humility and continence. 

Secondly, we find no longer any trace of itinerant mis- 
sionaries. The ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ speaks of prophets, it is 
true, but these are Elias, Eliseus and Ezekiel.? No mention 
is made of the word teacher (διδάσκαλος), nor of the word 
evangelist. The only Apostles are the great Apostles, like 
Peter and Paul. 

The ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ does not merely re-echo the 
authoritative formule of St. Paul, of the ‘‘ Didaché,” of the 
‘“‘Prima Petri” and of the Johannine texts: from beginning 
to end, it proclaims unity through authority. As it was 
written to a Church that had fallen a prey to anarchy, we 
easily understand why it insists on the necessity of obedience : 
still, it insists upon obedience in such a way that unity 
through authority quickly appears to be the fundamental prin- 
ciple of its ecclesiology. The word ‘unanimity ” (ὁμόνοια) 
comes often from the pen of St. Clement; so also do the 
words and images which convey the idea of discipline and of 
obedience. 


1The inscription does not run in Clement’s name: ‘H ἐκκλησία τοῦ 
θεοῦ ἡ παροικοῦσα Ῥώμην τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ παροικούσῃ Κόρινθον. . . . 
One Church, one city, but this Church is a foreigner in this city. Re- 
garding the meaning of the word πάροικος---ἃ domiciled foreigner—cf. 
Cuapor, p. 179, and in Drrrenpercer, ‘‘Sylloge,” vol. m1. p. 178, 
the index at the words πάροικοι and παροικέω. 

21 Clem. xxxvutt. 1-2, ἜΡΟΝ ΤΙ, ἢν ΣΕΠῚ Le 


124 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Like the « Didaché,” and the Apocalypse, Clement sees 
the Christian community spread through the whole world: 
as yet he does not know the word “‘ catholic,” but he does 
know that Paul preached righteousness to ὅλον τὸν κόσμον 
(v. 7) and that the elect are ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ (LIX. 2). 

The faithful are a people, an ἔθνος, which God has 
chosen to Himself in the midst of nations, a select share 
that God has taken, a holy portion He has reserved to Him- 
self: hence let them perform the works of holiness and 
adhere closely to those to whom the grace is granted by 
God, let them ‘‘ clothe themselves in unanimity”.! ‘Let 
our conscience then gather us together in unanimity in the 
same place, and let us cry unto God with one voice.’ ? 
The Ignatian epistles will not insist more vigorously on 
the unity which must reign in the Christian community. 
The ‘Prima Clementis” likens ecclesiastical discipline to 
military discipline. ‘‘ Let us mark the soldiers that are en- 
listed under our rulers, how exactly, how readily, how sub- 
missively, they execute the orders given them. All are not 
eparchs, or rulers of thousands, or rulers of hundreds, or 
rulers of fifties, and so forth: but each man in his own 
rank executeth the orders given by the king and his chief 
officers.” ? The “ Prima Clementis” takes up a comparison 
we have seen already in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans 
and in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: the faithful are 


Ixxix. 1-3, xxx. 3: ἐνδυσώμεθα τὴν ὁμόνοιαν. 
ὥχχχιν. 7: καὶ ἡμεῖς οὖν ἐν ὁμονοίᾳ ἐπὶ TO αὐτὸ συναχθέντες τῇ συνειδή- 
σει, ὡς ἑνὸς στόματος βοήσωμεν. This is an allusion to the liturgical chants 
and acclamations. The expression ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συναχθέντες, which we 
shall find again in St. Ignatius, had been already used by St. Paul; the 
word συνειδήσει may be compared with the expression ‘‘conscientia 
religionis”” of Tertullian. 
3XxxVII. 2-3: κατανοήσωμεν τοὺς στρατευομένους τοῖς ἡγουμένοις ἡμῶν 
. ἕκαστος ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι τὰ ἐπιτασσόμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ βασίλεως καὶ 
ἡγουμένων ἐπιτελεῖ. The chiliarchs, etc., are a reminiscence of Exod. 
xvi. 21. A ‘‘chiliarch”’ is like a tribune, a ‘‘ hecatontarch,” like a cent- 
urion. The Roman army had no grade corresponding to that of a ‘‘ pen- 
tecontarch”. An ‘‘eparch” is a civil “praefectus”’. We find at an early 
date Christians using with special fondness those military comparisons. 
Cf. 2 Cor. x. 3-6; Eph. νι. 10-18; Phil. 1. 25. In the Pastoral Epistles, 
Christian life is represented as a period of military service, and the Chris- 
tian as a soldier (1 Tim. 1.18; 2 Tim. τι. 3). St. Ignatius, and after him 
Tertullian and Cyprian, dwell on this comparison, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 125 


not only a people, an assembly, an army; they are a body,! 
which is the body of Christ: ‘‘ Wherefore do we tear and 
rend asunder the members of Christ?” (xuivi. 7). The 
Church is also a flock: ‘‘ Let the flock of Christ be at peace 
under the presbyters”’ who rule over it.2 All these images 
are already familiar to us, but we have to see what definite 
and precise ideas they express. 

Unity is procured by the religious training given by the 
presbyters to the faithful: the word παιδεία is almost as 
familiar to our author as ὁμόνοια. “‘ Let us reverence our 
rulers,” he writes, ‘‘let us honour our elders, let us instruct 
our young men in the lesson of the fear of God, let us 
form our women towards that which is good.”* Here it is 
question only of moral training, but the same formation will 
apply to the mind and to the character, in order that ec- 
clesiastical unity may be obtained. ‘‘ Let us accept discip- 
line, whereat no man ought to be vexed . . . the admonition 
(φουθέτησις) which we give one to another is good and use- 
ful” (nuvi. 2). ‘Submit yourselves unto the presbyters, 
and receive discipline unto repentance. . . . Learn to sub- 
mit yourselves. . . . It is better for you to be found little 
but of good repute in the flock of Christ, than to be had in 
exceeding honour and yet be cast out of the hope of Christ.” * 
In other words: outside the fold no hope, outside the 
Church no salvation. 

This discipline has for its matter the Lord’s commands 
and the received faith. ‘‘ Let the commandments and or- 
dinances of the Lord be written on the tables of your heart”’ 
(11. 8): Woe to him who does not walk ‘in the ordinances 
of the commandments” of Christ.2 Let us remember the 
‘words of the Lord Jesus” and be ‘obedient to His hal- 


1xxxvu. 5, xxxvi. 1. We may recall what has been said above 
of the Latin word corpus as being the legal term for designating an 
association. 

PWV Ul RVing KLTV. Oy LVIT, ὦ. 

*xx1. 6. The προηγούμενοι are the rulers of the church, the πρεσβύτε- 
po are the Christians who are advanced in age or of old standing, in con- 
trast with the young, νεώτεροι. 

‘ivi. 1-2, Here again the πρεσβύτεροι are the elders, in contrast 
with the νεώτεροι. In this passage Clement follows 1 Pet. v. 5. 

ὅτι, 4: ἐν τοῖς νομίμοις τῶν προσταγμάτων αὐτοῦ. 


126 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


lowed words’”.! He that hath love fulfils “‘the command- 
roents of Christ” ?. As true as God lives, and as the 
Lord Jesus lives, and as the Holy Ghost lives, he who 
fulfils humbly and perseveringly ‘‘the ordinances and com- 
mandments given by God” will be sure of a place among 
those souls that are saved by Jesus Christ.2 When preach- 
ing union to the faithful of Corinth, the author of the 
Hpistle does not at all doubt that his admonitions will be 
heard, because the Corinthians are men of good faith who 
have pondered ‘‘the oracles of the teaching of God”. The 
words used to designate this teaching are as definite as 
can be desired. The Epistle does not speak of a “spirit,” 
but of Jogia—a word which suggests the idea of precise and 
without doubt written precepts. Then, too, the idea of Holy 
Writ is affirmed by the ‘‘ Prima Clementis” in the most ex- 
plicit terms: « You know,” we read in the Epistle, ‘and you 
know well, the sacred Scriptures and you have searched into 
the logia of God”.® Whatever the contents of these sacred 
Scriptures may be, whatever place the New Testament may 
have in them, this is a law which will enable the presbyters 
to judge rightly. Then, conjointly, we have the word rule 
itself (κανών) pronounced: and this word he does not apply 
to Holy Writ exclusively, but to all that belongs to the re- 
ceiyed faith: ‘‘ Let us forsake idle and vain thoughts; and 
let us conform to the glorious and venerable canon which 
has been handed down to us”,® 

The “Prima Clementis’’ does not need to apply this 
principle of the canon to any doctrinal matter against 
heretics. It has to consider the hierarchical order, only inas- 
much as it is the institution of Christ Himself. ‘‘ We ought 
to do all things in order, whatever the master has commanded 


redhat 1.9. ΟἹ, Ἐπ. 1-|0| 

2xuix. 1. τὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ παραγγέλματα. Cf. L. 5. 

Sivint. 2: τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ δεδομένα δικαιώματα καὶ προστάγματα. 

4Lxu. 3: τὰ λόγια τῆς παιδείας τοῦ θεοῦ. Cf. Heb. xu. 6-9. 

ὅχπι. 1: ἱερὰς γραφάς, λόγια τοῦ θεοῦ. Of. XLV. 2. 

Svit.2: ἔλθωμεν ἐπὶ τὸν εὐκλεῆ καὶ σεμνὸν τῆς παραδόσεως ἡμῶν κανόνα. 
The word κανών which we had already found in 2 Cor. χ. 19 and Gal. 
vi. 16, reappears: here it signifies a binding rule, having authority. 
Clement uses it in two other passages ; I. 3 (ἐν τῇ κανόνι τῆς ὑποταγῆς) and 
ΧΕΙ a 


THE INFANT CHURCH 127 


us to perform at the appointed seasons.”! This is an al- 
lusion to the Christian worship. Here, as in the ‘‘ Didaché,”’ 
the allusion to Christian worship brings up the thought 
of the Levitical worship. ‘‘ Now the offerings and minis- 
trations He commanded to be performed with care, not ac- 
cording to pleasure or in disorder, but at fixed times and 
seasons. And where and by whom He would have them 
performed, He Himself fixed by His supreme will.” He 
has determined the function of the high-priest, the place 
assigned to the priests, and the offices of the Levites: there 
are prescriptions for the man of the people, the layman, 1.e. 
for the Israelite who does not belong to the tribe of Levi 
and to the priestly family.2 This is simple allegory, 
Levitism being the type of the order which, according to 
the ‘‘ Prima Clementis,” must prevail in the Christian liturgy. 
There is a dispute as to whether the high-priest (ἀρχιερεύς) 
typifies here the bishop, or whether he typifies Christ: this 
much is certain, that the priests (ἱερεῖς) typify the presbyters, 
and the Levites, the deacons. At all events, the Christian 
worship is in the hands of a hierarchy distinct from the 
people: there are clerics and there are laymen. ‘‘ Let each 
one of us, brethren, keep to his own order . . . not trans- 
gressing the appointed rule of his office.” ὃ 

We have already seen in the ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ a de- 
cidedly Roman image of that hierarchy: the Christians com- 
pared to an army serving under a certain number of officers, 
each soldier at his post and fulfilling, according to his grade, 
the commands of the basileus and of the officers. Here the 
basileus is Christ, and the officers (ἡγούμενοι) are the pres- 
byters. We must note that the basileus gives orders, and 


1x. 1: πάντα τάξει ποιεῖν ὀφείλομεν ὅσα ὁ δεσπότης ἐπιτελεῖν ἐκέλευσεν 
κατὰ καιροὺς τεταγμένους. 

°XL, 2-5: τῷ γὰρ ἀρχιερεῖ ἴδιαι λειτουργίαι δεδομέναι εἰσίν, καὶ τοῖς 
ἱερεῦσιν ἴδιος 6 τόπος προστέτακται, καὶ λευίταις ἴδιαι διακονίαι ἐπίκεινται, 6 
λαϊκὸς ἄνθρωπος κιτιλ. As to the meaning of ἀρχιερεύς see Liaurroor, 
**Clement,” vol. 11. p. 123. We should notice the use of the word τόπος. 
The word λαϊκός which is not found in the LXX, appears here for the 
first time in the ecclesiastical language. 

‘i bani a ἕκαστος ἡμῶν, ἀδελφοί, ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι, . . . μὴ παρεκβαίνων 

τὸν ὡρισμένον τῆς λειτουργίας αὐτοῦ κανόνα. 


128 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


so also do the officers.1_ Whence do the presbyters derive this 
right to command, and this authority which is added to the 
authority of the received precepts? The “‘ Prima Clementis” 
answers that Christ was sent by God, and the Apostles by 
Jesus Christ. Tertullian will express the idea in no more 
striking termsa century later : ‘‘ Ecclesia ab apostolis, apostola 
a Christo, Christus a Deo’’. 

In fact the ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ adds that, after receiving 
the instructions of the risen Saviour, the Apostles parted 
company to preach God’s kingdom; they preached it in prov- 
inces and cities, where they established the ‘ first-fruits,”’ 
i.e. the first converts of those provinces and cities, in the 
functions of episcopit and deacons, to minister to those 
who were to join the Church later on (xu. 1-4). 
Thus the hierarchy was based on the immediate authority 
of the Apostles. When the “first-fruits,” or first episcopt 
commissioned by the Apostles, in due course die, their office 
will be taken up and exercised by new episcopi, men who 
will command the esteem of all: for these new episcopi will 
have been invested with their office, if not by the Apostles 
themselves, at least by the episcopr chosen by the Apostles, 
the consent of the whole Church being required.?_ In other 
words, unlike the magistracies of Greek cities, the episcopal 


TXXXVII, 2: τὰ ἐπιτασσύμενα ὑπὸ τοῦ βασίλως καὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων. 
These terms also express Clement’s loyal fidelity to the Emperor and the 
magistrates. In this respect the early Christian community had two 
sentiments : on one hand, the sentiment which is expressed in St. John’s 
Apocalypse and looks upon the Empire as a manifestation of Antichrist ; 
on the other hand, the sentiment of loyalty, which impels to render to 
Ceesar the things that are Czesar’s. Leaving aside the obscure text of 
2 Thess. τι. 6, 7, St. Paul expressed most decidedly the sentiment of 
loyalty, Rom. x11. 1-7 and Tit. m1. 1; likewise St. Peter, 1 Pet. τι. 13- 
14,17. In return for this sentiment, the Christians, like the Jews, ex- 
pect from the Empire nothing but justice and security : they dare not 
hope it to embrace the Gospel. 

"xiv. 2-3. In these passages we may find an allusion to the 
collegiate episcopate, and also the manner of election. Trustworthy men 
are chosen (δεδοκιμασμένοι). They are invested by the Apostles, or, if the 
Apostles are dead, by the episcopi or presbyters instituted by the 
Apostles ; they are invested with the consent of the local Church. Τοὺς 
οὖν κατασταθέντας ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνων (the Apostles) ἢ μεταξὺ ὑφ᾽ ἑτέρων ἐλλογίμων 
ἀνδρῶν, συνευδοκησάσης τῆς ἐκκλησίας πάσης ; the local Church brings 
merely its consent to their investiture. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 129 


authority, together with the powers which constitute it, is 
not derived from the vote of the members of the assembly - 
it is not a power delegated by that assembly: it is an office, 
or λειτουργία which those invested with it pass on to their 
successors as an inheritance transmissible from hand to 
hand: in one word it is the hierarchy. 

This is the principle in the name of which the ‘‘ Prima 
Clementis’”’ reproves the scandal given by the Church of 
Corinth. For as to the presbyters who fulfil blamelessly 
their function, ‘“‘we consider that it is unjust to depose 
them” (xnIv. 3). It is indeed an abominable scandal, a 
scandal unworthy of Christianity, that in a Church as old 
and as firmly established as that of Corinth, a cabal should 
have been formed, for the sake of one or two personages, 
against the presbyters, or rulers of the Church (XLvIl. 6). 
This rebellion is wicked and hateful: ‘It will be no light 
sin in us, if we turn out of their episcopal charge those 
who have offered the gifts blamelessly and holily”.1 These 
few words imply that, in case of a serious grievance, the 
community may deprive of the episcopal function one who 
has been invested with it. Apart from such cases, the office 
cannot be taken away, and is held for life (xiv. 5-6). 

The practical conclusion of the Epistle is that there were 
sent from Rome to Corinth ‘faithful and prudent men,” 
men of mature age and well known, ever since their youth, 
for the gravity of their lives: ‘‘ They shall be witnesses be- 
tween you and us,” in other words, they shall express to 
the Corinthians the sentiments of the Romans, and give 
them Clement’s letter. ‘‘This we have done that you may 
know that we have had, and still have, every solicitude that 
you should be speedily at peace” (Lx. 3-4). Whether the 
Roman Church had been asked by some Corinthians to inter- 
vene, the Epistle does not say; if the presbyters deprived of 
their office through the revolt of the Corinthians did, in fact, 
appeal to Rome, it may have been tactful on Clement's 
part not to mention it. If that did happen, we have here 


1 χταν, 4: ἁμαρτία od μικρὰ ἡμῖν ἔσται, ἐὰν τοὺς ἀμέμπτως Kal ὁσίως προσ- 
ἐνεγκόντας τὰ δῶρα, τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἀποβάλωμεν. Here again we find the 
priestly character of the episcopate affirmed and the episcopate included 
in the presbyterate, according to the meaning we have fixed elsewhere, 


180 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


a most remarkable appeal to Rome, the first that history re- 
cords. But it may be that Rome was reliably informed by 
public rumour of the scandal which had arisen at Corinth, 
and that her intervention was spontaneous (XLVI. 7). On 
this latter supposition, we realize the more distinctly how 
unprecedented is the intestine revolution that has taken place 
at Corinth, and also how Rome is already conscious ‘‘ of poss- 
essing a supreme and exceptional authority,’ which she will 
not cease to claim in subsequent ages, and which, as early 
as this first intervention, is religiously obeyed by Corinth." 
Sohm, who has recognized the importance of the testi- 
mony which the Epistle of St. Clement of Rome bears to 
the history of Catholicism and of the Roman primacy, 
sees in it the manifesto of ecclesiastical law, of that famous 
‘‘Kirchenrecht”’ which is, in his eyes, the framework of 
Catholicism. The fundamental idea of Catholicism, he says, 
is that the visible Church governed by the bishops and by 
the Pope is identical with Christendom, i.e. the Church of 
Christ. Why? Because Christendom has received from God 
Himself a definite legal constitution; in other words, be- 
cause there is a divine law. And this doctrine finds its first 
expression in St. Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians. Be- 
fore Clement there was nothing similar, so that one may 
justly say that Clement’s letter put an end to the primitive 
condition of Christianity, and brought about ‘the most mo- 
mentous accident in the whole evolution of the Church”’.? 
This view contains an important element of truth, in 
regard to which it describes accurately the teaching of the 
‘‘Prima Clementis”. Certainly, the ‘“‘ Prima Clementis ” 
proclaims the divine right of the hierarchy founded by the 
Apostles; certainly, this divine law of the hierarchy is con- 
stitutive of Catholicism. But did the ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ 
create thus entirely the divine right of the hierarchy on the 
occasion of the incident of Corinth, or was not the divine 
right already contained in the existing institutions and in 
the conception which all Christians had of those institu- 


1 Ducuesng, ‘‘ Kglises separées,” p. 126. We may remark too that 
the Apostle John, who was still living at Ephesus, did not intervene, 
although communications between Ephesus and Corinth were much more 
natural than between Corinth and Rome. 

2 Sou, ‘‘ Kirchenrecht,” p. 160, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 131 


tions? Sohm claims that, till the time of Clement’s 
Epistle, Christendom in its enthusiastic faith, knew no 
power save that of Love and of the Spirit:! but this is 
romancing! When he has to explain the intervention of 
Clement and of his legal mind in the midst of such a chaos, 
Sohm talks of the decrease of faith, of the necessity of regu- 
lating the eucharistic worship and the management of 
finance: ‘‘ Practical considerations inspired the letter of 
Clement and brought about later on the triumph of his 
ideas”. Catholicism is the fatal product of the decrease of 
faith and of the multiplication of sins: we have it on the 
authority of a Protestant professor. 


III. 


The ‘‘ Prima Clementis ” is the expression of an ecclesi- 
ology that is more than merely Roman and legal. Great as the 
distance may be between the man of law and tradition who 
wrote the “‘ Prima Clementis,” and the emotional and mystical 
author of the Ignatian Epistles, it is not paradoxical to affirm 
that St. Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius of Antioch 
_ agree essentially in their conception of the Church. 

A first feature common to both is this: St. Ignatius 
knows nothing of those itinerant missionaries who, prompted 
by the Spirit, were still going around from one Church to 
another, when the ‘‘ Didaché” was composed. There is a 
constant correspondence going on between the Churches ; 
and this mutual intercourse by means of letters and mes- 
sengers is regulated and, we may say, official. For in- 
stance, Ignatius begs Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, to 
assemble the faithful of Smyrna and choose a messenger to 
go to Antioch and tell the Christians of that city how grate- 
ful Ignatius is to the Smyrnians.2 Again Ignatius asks 


1Soum, ‘ Kirchenrecht,” pp. 162-3. Harnack, ‘‘ Entstehung und 
KEntwickelung der Kirchenverfassung und des Kirchenrechts in den zwei 
ersten Jahrhunderten”’ (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 121-86, has a pungent criti- 
cism of what elsewhere he calls Sohm’s ‘“ Anabaptist thesis”. Cf. also 
the criticism of Sohm’s view by Pau Fournter in the ‘‘ Nouvelle Revue 
historique du droit,” vol. xv1ir. (1894), pp. 286-95. 

*“Polye.” vit. 2: πρέπει συμβούλιον ἀγαγεῖν θεοπρεπέστατον καὶ χει- 
ροτονῆσαί τινα. The verb χειροτονεῖν always signifies to elect; and this is 
why Ignatius here calls the church συμβούλιον; 

9 


152 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Polycarp to write to the neighbouring churches to entreat 
each of them to send, if possible, a messenger to convey to 
their destination Polycarp’s letters to his bereaved flock. 
‘“‘T salute him who from Smyrna shall be appointed to go 
to Syria.” 1 

The insistence of the ‘‘ Prima Clementis” on the neces- 
sity of obedience to the established hierarchy on the part of 
the faithful might be accounted for by the state of anarchy 
into which the Corinthian Church had accidentally fallen, 
On the contrary, what imparts to this insistence its true signi- 
ficance, is the fact that the Ignatian Epistles repeat it, with 
a similar emphasis and when addressing all the Churches, 
in the manifest assumption that the principle 1s fundamental. 
The word ὁμόνοια is just as frequently used by Ignatius as by 
Clement; soalso is the word ὑποτάσσειν in the same sense of 
submission and obedience. Everywhere we find a constituted 
hierarchy, with the bishop as supreme, a presbyterium οἵ 
priests, and deacons.? ‘Let all the faithful respect the 
deacons as [they do] Jesus Christ,’ since Jesus Christ be- 
came willingly the servant of His own disciples; let them 
‘“‘respect the bishop as the image of the Father, and the 
priests as the council of God and the college of the 
Apostles: apart from these ’””—the bishop, the presbyterrum, 
the deacons—“ there is no Church”.? Could the hierarchical 
idea of the Church be more strongly expressed ? 

Unlike Clement, Ignatius does not treat its Apostolic 
institution as the sole reason for the submission of the 
faithful to the hierarchy ;* he desires that we should also 
see in it the divine authority it represents. Ignatius is a 
mystic in whose eyes the bishop is the grace of God, and 
the presbyteriwm the law of Jesus Christ ; God is pre-emi- 


1<¢ Polyc.” vin. 1-2. Cf. Potycoarp, ‘“‘ Philip.” xuz., xv. 

2 TrxgRont, ‘‘ Hist. des dogmes” (Paris, 1905), vol. 1 p. 140. Ds 
Gunovurac, ‘‘L’Helise chr. au temps de S. Ignace ” (Paris, 1907), p. 137 
and foll. 

3“ Prall.” mr. 1: χωρὶς τούτων ἐκκλησία οὐ καλεῖται. Cf. ‘Smyrn.” 
vi. 1. ‘‘ Ad Polycarp.” vi. 1. Cf. Ponycarp. “ Philip.” v. 3. 

4¢¢Trall.” vir. 1 : τοῦτο δὲ ἔσται ὑμῖν μὴ φυσιουμένοις καὶ οὖσιν ἀχω- 
ρίστοις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου καὶ τῶν διαταγμάτων τῶν ἀποστόλων. 
Lientroot, ‘‘ Ignatius” (1889), vol. 1. p. 169, finds in this passage a 
reference to the institution of episcopacy. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 133 


nently the bishop, the invisible bishop who manifests him- 
self through and in the visible bishop.'| The faithful must 
submit to the bishop, as Jesus Christ submitted to His 
Father, and as the Apostles submitted to Christ, to the 
Father, and to the Spirit;? they must submit to the pres- 
bytervwm as to Christ’s Apostles. ΤῸ describe that discipline, 
Ignatius uses the comparison already used by St. Clement, 
that of the military discipline: let there be no deserter among 
the faithful enlisted in the service of Christ.* He also uses 
the comparison of the choral unison which we found in St. 
Clement: the presbyteriwm is attuned to the bishop like the 
strings of a lyre: the whole Church sings together and in 
unison, as a choir, forming but one voice.’ The faithful are 
united to their bishop by a bond which is not human but 
spiritual, the same bond as unites the Church to Jesus 
Christ, ‘that all things may be harmonious in unity”.® 
The faithful are the members of Christ. Hence they should 
remain in “‘ blameless unity, that they may also be partakers 
οἱ God)? 

The inscription of every one of the Ignatian Hpistles 
bears testimony that the Church, the local and self-govern- 
ing Church, is, in the eyes of Ignatius, a moral, predestined, 
sanctified thing, of which, prompted by his spirit of faith, 
he sings the praises in truly lyric tones. The Church 
‘which is in Ephesus” is ‘‘blessed through the greatness 
of God in all plenitude”; she is “predestined before all 
ages”. he Church “which is at Magnesia, on the 
Meander,” is ‘‘ blessed through the grace of God the Father 
in Jesus our Saviour”, The Church “which is at Tralles 
of Asia” is ‘‘ beloved of God,” she is holy, chosen, worthy 
of God. The Church “ which is at Philadelphia of Asia” is 
established in the concord of God, she exults in the Saviour’s 
passion and overflows with God’s mercy that is in her. The 


1“¢Maon.” i. and ut.; cf. ‘‘Polyc.” inscr. and vu. 3, on the 
episcopate of God. 

3. 4 Maon.” στῆς 2: 966 ΤΆ] τ 2 

1 ἐς Polycarp,” νι. 2: ἀρέσκετε ᾧ στρατεύεσθε, ἀφ᾽ οὗ τὰ ὀψώνια 
κομίσεσθε, μήτις ὑμῶν δεσέρτωρ εὑρεθῇ. The reader will notice the Latin- 
isms borrowed from military language. 

5 «¢ Eph.” Iv. δος Eph.” v. 1. eo Pho νὰ αν τῶν 


194 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Church ‘‘ which is at Smyrna of Asia” is full of grace, and 
beloved of God, and fertile in holiness. Ignatius lyrically 
personifies each Church to impress vividly on the faithful 
that, if they wish to abide by the law given them by God, 
they must unceasingly adhere to their respective Churches, 
and therefore to their respective bishops, in constant 
fidelity. 

Again, this personification proves how perceptible is this 
unity in every Church: could St. Ignatius speak as he does, 
were each city divided into dissenting and rival commu- 
nities? It proves also the mutual agreement among them- 
selves of all these various Christian cities; could Ignatius 
write to all of them with this confidence, were he not sure 
that their sentiments were in harmony with his? These 
Christian communities, it is true, are threatened with error: 
but what is so remarkable is that these errors, far from ob- 
taining a lasting abode in the heart of the community, 
succeed only in separating from the community any one who 
embraces them. Docetism, which reduces Christ to a divine 
phantom, is the error denounced by St. Ignatius as an actual 
danger: ‘‘ Be ye deaf,” he writes, ‘‘ when any man speaketh 
to you of Jesus Christ as though He were not of the race of 
David or the Son of Mary, as though He had not truly 
eaten or drunk or suffered, as though He had not died 
or descended into hell, or been raised from the dead: the 
Christians who speak thus are unbelievers (ἄπιστοι), and 
godless (ἄθεοι) : avoid them’. The Christians of Ephesus 
are praised because they “‘all live according to truth, and 
no heresy hath a home among them”.” ‘'Truth”’ is to be 
understood here, it would seem, in the sense of the rule of 
faith. 

A division, a heresy, is the contrary of the truth received 
by all. Whoever strives to sow an ‘“‘evil doctrine”’ is re- 
jected, driven away as a mad dog that is beyond cure.2 The 
Philadelphians must beware of weeds which are not culti- 
vated by Jesus Christ, which have not been planted by the 
Father.t| Whoever does not speak of Jesus Christ as the 
Church does, must be looked upon as dead: an allusion 


2 SS Trall,” esx.) “Smyrna. 5. Eph.” vi. 2. 
3¢¢ Eph.” vir. 1 and rx. 1. 4s" Philad.” asd. CE. ‘va, 1-2, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 135 


perhaps to the custom of the philosophical schools of ancient 
Greece, in which the term ‘“‘dead” was applied to those 
scholars who broke with the dogmas of their school! .. . 
At all events the Churches which Ignatius has in view, 
effectively defend themselves against the inroads of Docet- 
ism: and this actual condition of things explains why ad- 
hesion to the visible Church is a guarantee that one is in 
possession of the truth. 

As unity, however mystically it may be understood and 
preached, is not of self-evident necessity, St. Ignatius must 
broach a theory which can justify it. Here, as for the whole 
religion, faith has preceded theory, and theory—as it ever 
happens—has been made necessary by heresy. Ignatius 
writes to the Philadelphians as follows :— 

‘‘{vir.] Even though certain persons desired to deceive 
me after the flesh, yet the Spirit is not deceived, being from 
God: for it knows whence it comes and where it goes, and 
it searches out the hidden things. I cried out, when I was 
among you; I spake with a loud voice, with God’s own 
voice, Give heed to the bishops and presbytery and deacons. 
Howbeit they suspected me of saying this because I knew 
beforehand of the schism of certain persons. But He in 
whom I am bound is my witness that I learned it not from 
flesh of man; it was the Spirit who spake in this wise; Do 
nothing without the bishop; keep your flesh asa temple of 
God; cherish union; shun divisions; be imitators of Jesus 
Christ, as He Himself also was of His Father. 

“ [ψ11.}] I did therefore my own part, as a man who is 
on the side of unity. Where there is division and anger, 
there God abides not. Now the Lord forgives all men 
when they repent, if repenting they return to the unity of 
God and to the communion of the bishop: I have faith in 
the grace of Jesus Christ, who shall strike off every fetter 
from us; and I entreat you, Do nothing in a spirit of 
factiousness, but in accordance with the teaching of Christ. 
For I heard certain persons saying, ‘If I find not this doc- 


1 ἐς Philad.” νι. 1. Cf. the note of Funk on that passage. ‘‘ PP. 
apostol.” (1901), vol. 1. p. 269, where he quotes Clement of Alexandria 
and Didymus. 


196 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


trine of faith in the archives, in the Gospel,! I believe it not’. 
And when I said to them ‘It is written,’ they answered me, 
‘That is the question’. But as for me, my archives are 
Jesus Christ, the invisible archives are His Cross, His 
Death, His Resurrection, and faith through Him; wherein 
I desire to be justified through your prayers.” 

Here we find St. Ignatius contending with Christians 
whose minds are being wrought on by heresy. Ignatius 
has repeated his maxim, which is always the same: Love 
unity, do nothing without the bishop. At Philadelphia the 
faithful did not think this was a principle, they saw in it a 
lesson given for the benefit of some who were then breaking 
with the bishop and with unity. Without doubt his warn- 
ing was timely, but Ignatius was not thinking of that; 
what he was saying at Philadelphia he had said everywhere. 
But, at Philadelphia, the faithful, who have been led away 
by Docetism, reason out their error and lay down this prin- 
ciple: Unless we find in the archives, i.e. in the Gospel, the 
article of faith on which we disagree, we shall not believe. 
By ‘‘archives” we must understand here, not the Old 
Testament, as Lightfoot thought, but simply, with Funk 
and Zahn, every collection of authentic documents, like those 
preserved in public archives: the collection appealed to by 
these controversialists is the Gospel. We believe, they say, 
only what is written. 

Those few words of the Epistle to the ΠΕΝΉΤΩΝ ae 
cate the antithesis between Holy Writ and the hierarchical 
authority, and even at an early date, heretics are found who 
appeal to what is written for the purpose of justifying them- 
selves. ‘Taken in itself, the appeal to Scripture could be no 
surprise for Ignatius, since he cannot but admit the authority 
of a Sacred Writing. Did he not say to the Magnesians: 
‘Do your diligence that you be confirmed in the maxims of 
the ord and of the Apostles”.? The word maxims is 


τ About the text of this passage see the note of Funk, “ PP. apostol.” 
vol. τ. p. 270. Concerning the ἀρχεῖα, i.e. the archives of Greek cities, 
CHaport, p. 245-8. 

2 Magn.” xii. 1: omovdd ere οὖν βεβαιωθῆναι ἐν τοῖς δόγμασιν τοῦ κυ- 
ρίου καὶ τῶν ἀποστόλων. The word δόγμα signifies primarily any decision 
or decree that has force of law in a Greek city. See in DITTENBERGER, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 137 


not an appropriate translation of the Greek word δόγματα, 
which expresses the idea of a command or a decision emanat- 
ing from an unquestioned authority, and, as such, obligatory. 
If the Lord and the Apostles have left to Christians “‘ dog- 
mas” of this kind, any writing that contains these ‘“‘ dog- 
mas” is invested with an authority equal to that of the 
Lord and of the Apostles; this is the principle itself of the 
New Testament regarded as a canon.' Ignatius accepts the 
principle that we must believe what is written, and, address- 
ing the Docete against whom he is arguing, he says to 
them: What is written testifies against you; to which the 
Docet reply: This is precisely the pot. Here we are in 
a circle. 

We should like to see St. Ignatius state more distinctly 
that Scripture is not self-sufficing and that the written faith 
is not the whole faith. He imsinuates it when he writes: 


ἐς ἨῸΣ me, my archives are Jesus Christ . . . and faith 
through Him.” The authoritative faita is that faith to 
which the Church as such gives testimony. . . . But the 


affirmation of Ignatius has not that distinctness with which 
Ireneus and Tertullian will speak later on. 

To be complete, however, we must call attention to the 
importance attached by St. Ignatius to the authority of the 
Apostles. The ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ had already pointed to 
the Apostles as clothed with the power of Jesus for the es- 
tablishment of the Church all over the world. As we have 
just seen, St. Ignatius places the ‘‘dogmas” of the Apostles 
on the same level with those of the Lord. He speaks of 
the Gospel as a real presence of Christ, and, in the same 
sentence, refers to the Apostles as the first presbytervum of 
the Church.? He likens the Apostles to the prophets of the 


ἐς Sylloge inscriptionum greecarum,” vol. mr. p. 173, the index at the word 
δόγμα. Naturally those δόγματα are preserved in the public archives of 
the city. 

1 Of. “ Philad.” v. 1: προσφυγὼν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ . . . καὶ τοῖς ἀποστόλοις 

οὖς Kal, τοὺς προφήτας δὲ ἀγαπῶμεν k.7.A., and LicHrroor’s note in loc. : 1 

cannot give here the explanations and remarks which would be required in 
a history of the formation of the canon of the New Testament. I have 
studied the conclusions of Zahn in an article in the ‘‘ Revue Biblique,” vol. 
xu. (1903), pp. 10-26, 226-33. For a criticism of Harnack’s theory see 
W. Sanpay, ‘‘ Inspiration ” (London, 1893), pp. 1-69. 

a*Philad.’” v1. 


188 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Old Covenant who also, in a certain way, announced the 
Gospel.1 He places the authority of the Apostles far above 
that which he, a bishop and a martyr, may have: “1 did 
not think myself competent for this, that being a prisoner 
I should order you as though I were an Apostle.”’? He ex- 
cuses himself from writing to the Romans: “1 do not en- 
join you, as Peter and Paul did: they were Apostles’’. 
The authority of the Apostles was evidently privileged and 
incommunicable, and it has not ceased to attach to the de- 
cisions that emanated from them, and the teachings given by 
them. 

Thus unity is based on Divine right. Ignatius looks upon 
it as so manifestly the economy intended and actually estab- 
lished by God and by the Lord, that he adds nothing more 
for its justification. He sees unity realized in every Church, 
he sees it realized no less perfectly throughout the world 
in that unity which binds together all the Churches in one, 
through the unity of their faith. The Lord, in whom we 
believe ‘‘ with immovable faith,’ was born of the Virgin 
Mary, baptized by John, nailed to the cross under Pontius 
Pilate, rose again ‘“‘that He might set up a standard 
unto all the ages for His saints and faithful people, whether 
among Jews or among Gentiles, in the one body of His 
Church.” * This standard is the cross. In the Church it is 
set up for ever, in order to gather Jews and pagans into 


att Phailads” w.02. 

2 Ypall.” mt. 3: οὐκ. . . ὡς ἀπόστολος ὑμῖν διατάσσωμαι. (1 sum- 
marize the text.) Compare Acts xv1. 4, and Ienarrus himself, ‘‘ Eph.” m1. 
1: οὐ διατάσσομαι ὑμῖν ὡς ov τι. The word διαταγή means a medical pre- 
scription, but also an imperial decision. DEISsMANN, pp. 56-7. 

5. ἐς Rom.” Iv. 3: οὐχ ws Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος διατάσσομαι ὑμῖν, ἐκεῖνοι 
ἀπόστολοι, ἐγὼ κατάκριτος. Cf. ‘‘Kph.” mi. 1. Ignatius could not speak 
thus of St. Peter and St. Paul, unless these two Apostles were connected 
with the Roman Church by historical circumstances and had really given 
commands to the Romans. 

1 ἐς Smyrn.” 1. 2: ἵνα ἄρῃ σύσσημον εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας διὰ τῆς ἀναστάσεως εἰς 
τοὺς ἁγίους καὶ πιστοὺς αὐτοῦ, εἴτε ἐν Ἰουδαίοις εἴτε ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐν ἑνὶ σώματι 
τῆς ἐκκλησίας αὐτοῦ. The Church is the Church of Jesus Christ: this may 
be an allusion to Matt. χνι. 18. Τῦ 15 ἃ body: a thought borrowed from 
Col. 1.18 and Eph. τι. 16, etc. Elsewhere (‘‘ Eph.” xvir. 1) Ignatius ex- 
plains that Christ was allegorically anointed with perfumes, to impart 
incorruptibility (ἀφθαρσία) to the Church. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 139 


one calling, which makes them—the faithful and the saints— 
one body. The same sentiment is expressed by Ignatius in 
his letter to the Christians of Smyrna. ‘‘ Wheresoever the 
bishop shall appear,’ he writes, ‘‘there let the body [of 
the faithful] be; even as where Jesus Christ is, there is 
the Catholic Church.”! In other words the bishop consti- 
tutes the unity of the local Church and Jesus Christ the 
unity of all the local Churches spread throughout the world, 
the unity of all the dispersed bishops. ‘‘ For Jesus Christ,” 
St. Ignatius writes to the Ephesians, ‘‘ is the mind of the 
Father, even as the bishops that are settled in the farthest 
parts [of the world] are the mind of Jesus Christ.” ” 

This is not the first time that we find in a Christian 
writer a sense of the actual unity of the Church in her geo- 
sraphical expansion, but for the first time in Christian litera- 
ture, we find here the name “‘ Catholic Church” pronounced.* 
Unlike the controversialists who will presently arise, Ignatius 
does not oppose the universal Church to the dissenting con- 
venticles; his purpose is to contrast the local churches with 


1<¢Smyrn.” vir. 2: ὅπου ἂν ἢ Χριστὸς ᾿Ιησοῦς, ἐκεῖ ἣ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία. 
Funk: “ Revera ecclesiis singulis universa ecclesia opponitur, et ut epis- 
copus illarum (visibile), sic Christus harum (invisibile) caput declaratur.” 
Licutroot: ‘‘The bishop is the centre of each individual Church, as 
Jesus Christ is the centre of the universal Church.” 

2¢*Hph.” mt. 2: of ἐπίσκοποι, of κατὰ τὰ πέρατα ὁρισθέντες, ἐν ᾿Ιησοῦ 
Χριστοῦ γνώμῃ εἰσίν. The geographical meaning of κατὰ τὰ πέρατα (cf. 
Ienat. ‘‘Rom.” vi. 1) is beyond dispute. 

>The word καθολικός is met with neither in the LXX nor in the 
New Testament. It belongs to classical Greek, but there it seems used 
only in philosophical language to designate a universal proposition : thus 
we are told that Zeno the Stoic had written a treatise about Universals, 
καθολικά. We shall find the word used with the same meaning in Clement 
of Alexandria and in Origen. Quintilian writes: ‘‘ Mihi semper moris 
fuit quam minime alligare me ad praecepta quae καθολικά vocitant, id est 
(ut dicamus quomodo possumus) universalia vel perpetualia”. ‘‘ Inst. 
orat.” τι. 13, 14. The word καθολικός signifies wniversal, in expressions 
like ‘‘ universal history,” for instance in Potysrus, ‘‘ Hist.” vii. 4, 11 : 
τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ κοινῆς ἱστορίας. St. Justin applies it to the resurrection 
of the dead: ἡ καθολικὴ ἀνάστασις “Dial.” 82; so also Theophilus of 
Antioch, “‘ Autol.” τ. 13. In Philo, καθολικός signifies general, in contrast 
with particular, ‘‘ Vita Mosis,” 11. 32 (ed. Conn, vol. iv. p. 212). Cf. 
Licutroor, ‘‘ Ignatius,” vol. um. p. 310, and Karrensuscn, ‘‘ Apostol. 
Symbol.” vol. 11, pp. 920-2. 


140 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the universal Church. Yet he brings out distinctly the idea 
of that Church which despite the multiplicity of its parts is 
one, and gives her the name she will bear in history. 

A last point will complete the ecclesiology of Ignatius. 
Did he ascribe to the Church spread throughout the world, 
any one localized centre of attraction? Did it enter into 
his mind that the Church of Rome was vested with a 
primacy over the other churches? ‘The passage in view 
of which these questions arise, is the address of his Epistle 
to the Romans. While the addresses of the other Epistles 
are marked by an emphasis which is to say the least, 
decidedly Asiatic, the address of the Epistle to the 
Romans has far more of this emphasis than any other. 
‘“‘Tonatius . . . (it reads) to the Church that hath found 
mercy in the bountifulness of the Father Most High and of 
Jesus Christ His only Son; to the Church that is beloved 
and enlightened through the will of Him who wills all 
things that are, according to the love of Jesus Christ, our 
God; [to the Church] also that presides in the place of the 
region of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honour, 
worthy of benediction, worthy of praise, worthy of being 
heard, worthy and chaste, and presiding over love, pos- 
sessing the law of Christ, and bearing the Father’s name, 
which Church I salute in the name of Jesus Christ. . . .”? 
This magnificent array of words is a primary witness that 
St. Ignatius pays more honour to the Church of Rome than 
to the other Churches to which he writes. 

Some claim to find a still surer evidence of this pre- 
eminence of Rome in the fact that ‘“‘she has the presidency 


27 


1 Τὺ is noticeable how Harnack (‘‘ Dogmengeschichte,” vol. τ΄, p. 
406), Soum (‘‘ Kirchenrecht,” p. 197), and Karrensuscu (p. 922) strive to 
lessen the importance of this fact. 

*“ Rom.” inser. : . . . ἥτις καὶ mpoxdOnra ἐν τόπῳ χωρίου Ῥωμαίων 

. 5 καὶ προκαθημένη τῆς ἀγάπης. Cf. FuUNK’s commentary in his edition, 
and his essay (‘‘ Der Primat der rémischen Kirche nach Ignatius und 
Treniius”’) in his ‘‘ Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen,” vol. 1. (Pader- 
born, 1897), pp. 2-12. A. Harnack, ‘‘ Das Zeugnis des Ignatius tiber das 
Ansehen der rémischen Gemeinde,” in the ‘‘ Sitzungsberichte” of the 
Academy of Berlin, 1896, pp. 111-31. Dom Cuapman, ‘“‘S. Ignace 
d’Antioche et l’Eglise romaine,” in the ‘‘ Revue bénédictine,” vol. xm. 
(1896), pp. 385-400. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 141 


in the place of the region of the Romans”. Funk grants 
without difficulty that to say ἐν τόπῳ χωρίου “Ῥωμαίων for “ at 
Rome,” is peculiar: but does not the style of Ignatius offer 
many instances of such affectation? In case, then, Ignatius 
meant to say simply, ‘“‘at Rome,” the verb προκάθηται will 
be construed absolutely: the Church presides, and it pre- 
sides at Rome.! 

But what is the nature of this pre-eminence? Accord- 
ing to Harnack, the expression προκαθημένη τῆς ἀγάπης gives 
us the meaning of the enigma: the Roman Church is the 
most charitable, generous, helpful of all the Churches, and 
this is why she is called the “president of love”. Funk, 
on the contrary, observes that προκαθημένη cannot be con- 
strued save with the name of a place or of a collectivity: 
we read προκαθημένη τῆς ἀνατολῆς, and προκαθημένη τῆς 
οἰκουμένης ; hence the word which here is joined to προκα- 
θημένη, should designate, not a virtue, but a collectivity. 
Now, in several passages, Ionatius uses the word ἀγάπη as 
synonymous with ἐκκλησία: 5" he says “the love of the 
Ephesians,” for ‘the Church of Ephesus”. Since, then, a 
local Church may be called ἀγάπη, why should not the same 
word designate the universal Church? So Funk contends. 
His argument—I need not observe—establishes a possibility 
rather than a conclusion; and he himself holds that the 
pre-eminence of the Roman Church is affirmed less by the 
expression προκαθημένη τῆς ἀγάπης than by the word προκά- 
θηται. 

With Funk, we may regard as certain that St. Ignatius 
believed in that pre-eminence, confirmed as we are in 
that view by other data of the Epistle of Ignatius to the 
Romans. We have already noted the reverence with which 
the Bishop of Antioch addresses the Church that has heard the 


1 Cf. Ienat. ‘‘ Magn.” vi. 1: προκαθημένου τοῦ émirkdrov=the bishop 
who presides. Ligurroot recalls ‘‘ Apostol. Constit.” 11. 26: ὁ yap ἐπίσ- 
κοπος προκαθεζέσθω ὑμῶν ὡς θεοῦ ἀξίᾳ τετιμημένος. 

2 Trall.” xut. 1: ἀγάπη Σμυρναίων καὶ Ἐφεσίων. ‘* Rom.” Ix. 3: ἡ 
ἀγάπη τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν. ‘*Philad.” x1. 2: ἡ ἀγάπη τῶν ἀδελφῶν τῶν ἐν 
Τρωάδι. Of. ‘‘Smyrn.” χα. 1. Perhaps this special use of the word 
ἀγάπη might be compared with that of the word ὁμόνοια, when designating 
the confederation of several cities, as was the case in Asia, for instance, 
Cuaport, ‘‘ Province d’Asie,” p. 346, 


142 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Apostles Peter and Paul. In the inscription of the Epistle, 
he praises the Christians of Rome for being faithful to all 
that is commanded by Christ, and for being filled wholly 
with the grace of God, and ‘‘ clear from every foreign stain’”’.? 
He congratulates them on having “instructed others,” and 
he adds: ‘‘My desire is that those lessons may be held 
firm which you teach and enjoin”.* 

Since the Romans have taught ‘ others,” those others 
represent churches other than that of Rome: churches that 
come to Rome to ask, or receive from Rome without asking, 
the lessons of the Apostolic commands which Rome preserves 
more safely than other churches. 

Between the captivity of St. Paul and that of St. Ignatius, 
the space of half a century intervenes, in the course of which 
the essential features of ecclesiology have been revealed to us. 

The preaching of the Gospel and the faith it creates 
give birth to communities in the whole world. Christian life 


1<¢ Rom.” Iv. 3. 

2“ Rom.” inser. ἀποδιῦλισμένοις (literally, filtered, Cf. ‘‘ Philad.” 11. 1) 
ἀπὸ παντὸς ἀλλοτρίου χρώματος. Liautroot, in loc.: ‘‘ The χρῶμα refers to 
the colouring matter which pollutes the purity of the water ”. 

** Rom.” 11. 1: ἄλλους ἐδιδάξατε, ἐγὼ δὲ θέλω ἵνα κἀκεῖνα βέβαια ἢ ἃ 
μαθητεύοντες ἐντέλλεσθε. According to LicHtroot and Funk, this may be 
an allusion to the “ Prima Clementis”. Cf. the eis ras ἔξω πόλεις of Hermas 
(‘‘ Vis.” τι. 4). ‘She presides in the country of the Romans. . ie 
Here there is no question of the bishops, but of the Church. Over what 
did the Roman Church preside ? Was it merely over some other Churches, 
or dioceses, within a limited area? Ignatius had no idea of a limitation 
of that kind. . . . The most natural interpretation of such language is that 
the Roman Church presides over all the Churches. . . . And be it observed 
that Ignatius speaks with a thorough knowledge of the matter ; he knows 
the past of the Church of Rome, he even makes allusion to some of her 
attitudes and acts, the remembrance of which is lost: ‘ You have never 
deceived any one ; you have taught others. My desire is that all that is 
prescribed by your teaching should remain uncontested.’ Of what teach- 
ing, of what prescriptions, is there question here? Does he mean the 
‘Prima Clementis’? Or the ‘Shepherd of Hermas’? The simplest 
thing is to admit that there were other acts and other documents, the 
memory of which was fresh in the time of Ignatius, but which have since 
perished and been forgotten. In any case, the manner in which he speaks 
of the authority of the Roman Church in matters of doctrine, and of the 
prescriptions sent by her to other Churches, is well worthy of attention.” 
Ducuesng, ‘‘Kglises separées,” pp. 127-9. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 143 


is an intercommunion (κοινωνία) of souls, of belief, of worship. 
Everywhere the apostolate has been succeeded by a settled 
hierarchy the various degrees of which become gradually 
more and more defined, the whole being recognized as 
an institution of Divine right, invested with supernatural 
powers. The idea of the faith which is everywhere pre- 
valent, is an authoritative conception, for faith is a com- 
mand or a teaching of God, of the Lord, accepted on the 
testimony of the Apostles:! and is preserved as a deposit. 
Christians must shun empty talkers, seducers, and false 
prophets, useless and foolish questions, traditions of men, 
unauthorized observances: the false teacher and his pro- 
ducts must be placed under the ban, he must be silenced, 
driven away: he is a heretic. There is but one Church for 
every city. The Churches are linked by the bond of solidar- 
ity. United together by means of constant intercourse, they 
are conscious of their unity in their dispersion, for they 
realize their conformity of faith, and the charity which pre- 
vails among them: since each of them is autonomous, 
their unity is a kind of confederacy, a confederacy which is 
daily expressed in facts. The primacy of Rome is affirmed. 
The faith, which is one, just as the Lord is one, gathers the 
dispersed faithful and their Churches into a still deeper unity, 
that of the supernatural life, which 1s common to all the 
faithful, in Christ and in the Spirit: the Church of Churches 
is mystically the body of Christ, of which the faithful are 
the individual members. There is circuminsession of the 
visible and of the invisible: where the bishop is, there the 
local Church is, and where the Catholic Church is, there Jesus 
Christ is. 


Excursus B. 


A Critical Examination of Protestant Theories on the 
Formation of Catholicism. 


The “formation of Catholicism” is an historical prob- 
lem that has been raised by criticism only in our own 


1 Juticuer, ‘‘ Einleitung,” p. 285, goes so far as to say that the words 
of Serapion, bishop of Antioch (about the year 200): ‘‘ We accept Peter 
and the other Apostles as we do the Lord” (ἀποδεχόμεθα ὡς Χριστόν, 
Euses. ‘‘ H. E.” νι. 12, 3), might have been pronounced a hundred years 
earlier, for even then Christians embodied all truth in the Apostles. 


144 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


times.!. The Catholic controversialists of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries were satisfied with a demonstration of 
the marks of the Church, especially her apostolicity : in his 
““Symbolik”’ (1832) Moehler appeals to the fact of her 
immemorial possession, and the testimony she bears to her- 
self. Neander (1842) was, according to Ritschl, the first to 
introduce the historical method into the investigation of the 
origins of this ‘‘ creation ’’—for such ‘‘ Catholic Christianity ” 
was in his eyes. After Neander, the same problem was 
taken up by Baur (1853) in the palmy days of the Tiibingen 
school. Later on, and in a spirit of reaction against the 
Tiibingen thesis, comes Ritschl himself, in the second edition 
of his ‘‘ Hntstehung der altkatholischen Kirche” (1857). 
The problem of the Church came into the foreground with 
this monograph of Ritschl’s which, however, Harnack con- 
siders ‘‘really too narrow”; and it is dealt with as of prime 
importance in MHarnack’s ‘‘ Dogmengeschichte” (1885). 
Meanwhile in his ‘‘ Apostolisches Zeitalter’”? (1886) Weiz- 
sacker ascribed to the first century the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the Church system, thereby reacting against the 
system of Harnack, which was still too narrow and mechanical. 
In his ‘‘ Kirchenrecht,”’ (1892) Sohm, whose special interest 
was in determining the origin and growth of ecclesiastical 
law, lent the weight of his authority to this reaction. In 
his researches into the history of the Apostles’ Creed (1894- 
1900) Kattenbusch contributes to restore the historical idea 
of tradition. Lastly, we cannot omit to mention Zahn’s 
works and controversies regarding the history of the Canon. 
We are here in presence of a phenomenon like that signalized 
by Harnack in his criticism of the sources, when he used 
the now famous formula: ‘‘We are moving back towards 
the tradition ’’.? 

If it is true that in history, reality is often reached only 
by means of successive approximations, 1t may be that dur- 
ing the last fifty years critical scholars outside the Catholic 


1Father Christian Prscu, ‘‘ Praelectiones Dogmaticae,” vol. 1. 
(Freiburg, 1894), pp. 178-80, is, as far as I know, the first and only schol- 
astic theologian who has mentioned and ἘΠῚ the theories of Ritschl, 
Harnack and Hatch. 

* ** Chronologie,” vol, 1. p. X. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 145 


fold have gradually come nearer to a more comprehensive 
view, and one nearer to our traditional beliefs. However, 
even now, is there not too much of the spirit of system and 
—to say the word—of Protestant prejudice in their conten- 
tions? The best exposition of the views now current 
among Protestant historians, has been given in French by 
A. Sabatier:! to his work we shall have recourse, in the 
desire to present these views with as much objectivity as 
possible. We will reserve our criticisms till we have before 
us this system as a whole. 

* * 

* 

1. In the first place this school contends that the idea of 
a Church is foreign to the Gospel of Jesus. 

2. In the earliest stage the Christian communities—for 
from the very beginning Christians grouped themselves in 
communities—are all characterized by the same faith in the 
near return of Christ, and the obsession of this firm truth 
keeps out all thought of a lasting establishment. 

3. Living in this feverish expectation of the « parousia,” 
the early Christian communities in that first hour of their 
existence need no discipline. ‘‘ The individual gifts (charisms) 
apportioned by the Spirit to divers members of the com- 
munity met all needs. The Spirit, acting in each believer, 
thus determines vocations, and portions out to one and 
another, according to their faculties or zeal, ministries and 
offices which appear to be only provisional.” Hence, in 
the beginning all the members of the community are 
equal; then, a distinction is made among them, based on 


‘(This is also the opinion of Dom C. Butter: ‘‘In my judgment, 
the importance of Sabatier’s book for Catholics lies in this, that it sets 
forth more powerfully and with more clear-cut precision than any other 
book known to me, the real difficulties and the fundamental problems 
in the domain of history which apologists of Catholicism have at the 
present to face” (‘* Hibbert Journal,” April, 1906, p. 482). Sabatier’s 
book has been translated into English, under the title ‘ Religions of 
Authority,” New York, 1904.—T.] Consult also Harnack’s ‘“ Kirche 
und Staat bis zur Griindung der Staatkirche” in the book “ Die christ- 
liche Religion” (Berlin, 1906), pp. 129-60, of the collection of HINNEBERG, 
‘*Die Cultur der Gegenwart”. See also ScHMIEDEL, art. ‘‘ Ministry” 
(1902) in Curyne’s ‘‘ Encyclopzedia Biblica,’ and the bibliography that 
accompanies the article. 


10 


146 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit; later on, the charism 
becomes ‘‘a permanent ecclesiastical function”. Under or 
side by side with the Apostles, prophets and teachers, ‘‘ who 
hold their vocation directly from God alone, and who are 
essentially itinerants,” every community chooses for itself 
presbyters or elders, episcopi and deacons: thus there arises, 
on lines parallel to ‘‘the nomad apostolate, a settled system 
of ecclesiastical functionaries, which is destined little by little 
to replace and absorb it.” } 

4. However, ‘‘the evolution of every organism is 
governed by a directing idea, which is, as it were, its ideal 
and hidden soul. This idea is no more wanting here than 
elsewhere.” Sabatier does not say that this directing idea 
can be detected in the Judeo-Christian communities. He 
finds it only in the communities founded by St. Paul, which, 
he says, ‘‘had from the beginning a vivid consciousness of 
their spiritual unity,” so that ‘‘ above the particular and local 
Churches,” there appears “‘the idea of the Church of God or 
of Christ, one and universal”. This unity is in no way 
external or visible: it is a communion of souls, the mystical 
body of which the invisible Christ is the head. It is not 
founded on unity of government, or on a certain number of 
rites or even of dogmas: it is purely moral. The Church 
is the holy bride of Christ: she awaits her spouse who is 
soon to come down from Heaven. ‘‘ This Pauline notion of 
the Church of Christ, like all the Apostle’s theology, is 
essentially idealist and transcendent”; none the less we 
must ‘‘recognize here the great idea which was to preside 
over the evolution of the Christian communities, and cul- 
minate in the constitution of the Catholic Church ”’.? 

5. That the Pauline conception of the Church as Christ’s 
mystical body had this influence on the genesis of Catholi- 
cism, must be accounted for by the success of St. Paul’s 
missions in the territories of the Roman Empire, and by 
the ruin of Jerusalem in the year 70. From that mo- 
ment, “the centre of gravity of the nascent Christianity 
was for ever displaced”. After vainly attempting to impede 


1 Sapatier, pp. 60, 61. Cf. Son, pp. 22-8. 
2 SaBATIER, pp. 61-3. Cf. Soum, pp. 16-22. Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” 
vol. τὸ p. 98. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 147 


Christian missionary work among the pagans, the Judaxo- 
Christian party which, in Sabatier’s eyes, represents ‘‘ primi- 
tive orthodoxy,” declines and finally dies away. The mass 
of the new converts from paganism take up a middle position 
‘‘ between the theology of Paul which they were incapable of 
comprehending,” and the severe demands of the Judaizers 
which they thoroughly disliked. ‘* Thus was formed a sort 
of elementary and neutral doctrine, half Greek rational wisdom 
and half Israelite tradition:’’ such was the theology of the 
Apostolic Fathers, ‘‘ the first basis of Catholic doctrine’’.! 

6. These Greeco-Roman Christian communities needed 
a centre around which they might group. ome was there. 
““The capital of the Empire was marked in advance to be- 
come the capital of Christianity.” This was a social fact 
which could not be disregarded. Hence ‘‘in the formation 
of the Catholic Church the genius of Rome exercised a de- 
cisive influence,” for this genius, which is neither speculative 
nor mystical, is the genius of law and government.” 

7. The Pauline conception of the Church as Christ’s 
mystical body is, then, the idea which, when translated into 
facts, gives birth to Catholicism. This evolution can be 
noticed already in the Pastoral Epistles, which, we are 
told, mark the transition, in the first years of the second 
century, from the Apostolic communities in which charis- 
matic inspiration was predominant to the Catholic Church 
which is about to appear. It is, indeed, about this time, 
in the beginning of the second century, that the name 
Catholic Church, “destined to so great a fortune,” is 
uttered for the first time by St. Ignatius in his Epistle to 
the Smyrnians. As yet it is merely a ‘‘ general expression,” 
designating “‘the great Church,” the whole community of the 
faithful, in opposition to the sects, heresies, and schools that 
swarm on all sides. This indefinite mass will become an 
organized and conscious society, only when two elements 
have been introduced into the dispersed and confused Chris- 
tian community: a statutory rule of faith accepted by all the 


1 SaBaTrer, p. 68. Cf. Harnack ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, pp. 239-48. 
*SABATIER, p. 69. Cf. Renan, ‘‘ Lectures on the Influence of 
Rome on Christianity ” (1880), especially the third and fourth lectures. 
Harnack, ‘‘ Kirche und Staat,” p. 138. ““ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 398. 
ge 


148 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Churches as the expression of Apostolic tradition, and an 
episcopal government powerful enough to reduce the whole 
to unity. ‘The double crisis of Gnosticism and Montanism 
which broke out between a.D. 130 and 150, and lasted 
nearly a century, furnished both.’’! 

This decisive crisis took place during the period 150-80, 
under the reigns of Antoninus and of Marcus Aurelius. ‘In 
the vat into which the whole vintage had been gathered a 
fermentation was going on, an intense ebullition, the rapid 
decomposition of the old elements and the slow recomposition 
of a new system: it was this which constituted the crisis out 
of which the Catholic theory of the Church issued.”? Rome 
realized the danger to which the still shapeless Christianity of 
the second century was exposed, on the left from Gnosticism, 
which was an inroad of the Greek spirit of speculation into 
Christianity and an attempt to merge Christianity in the 
general philosophy of the time; and on the right from Mon- 
tanism, which was a revival of the ‘‘ prophetic spirit’’ with 
its charisms, its ethical rigorism, and its preaching of the 
approaching “ parousia ”. 

8. Rome warded off the danger from the left by ac- 
crediting a rule of faith, which she drew up “ΟΥ̓ adding a 
few clear and well-defined propositions to the formula of 
baptism ᾿᾿ : it was thus the so-called Creed of the Apostles 
originated at Rome between the years 150 and 160, ‘‘the 
first and the venerable monument of Catholic orthodoxy,” 
which the Roman Church was soon to pass on rapidly to the 
other Churches.’ 

9. The danger from the right lasted longer; in the 
end, however, the bishops got the better of the prophets 
and of the private inspiration of the faithful. The result of 
this victory was that henceforth the Holy Ghost must use as 
its authentic organ the hierarchy alone. Rome crowned the 
victory by creating the theory of Apostolic succession, which 
has become the foundation of the authority of the bishops.’ 


1SaBATIER, p. 72. This is the leading contention of Rirscut, ‘‘ Ent- 
stehung,” p. 27landfoll. Harwnaock, ‘‘ Kirche und Staat,” p. 136, and for 
the development of these views ‘‘Dogmeng.” vol. 1’, p. 337 and foll. 

2 SABATIER, p- 76. 

5. ΒΑΒΑΤΙΒΕ, p. 79. Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. 14, p. 354 and foll. 

*Sapatier, p. 82. Harnack, ““ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 399 and foll. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 149 


* * 
* 


We may now take up in succession the various points 
of this theory. 

1. The contention that the idea of a Church is foreign 
to the Gospel of Jesus, and even irreconcilable with it, 
is held in Protestant circles to be certain and almost be- 
yond dispute. We shall not waste time on this point, as 
we have already given our reasons for discovering in the 
teaching of Jesus the point where the Church comes in. 

2. The critics in question suppose that the early Chris- 
tian communities were not concerned to establish a lasting 
organization, their horizon being limited by their expectation 
of the near « parousia”’. 

Here we detect the inner and radical inconsistency of the 
theory which claims to reduce the teaching of Jesus to a 
strictly eschatological message, for had the message of Jesus 
been only that, it could not have lived. It could hardly have 
taken root save in a Jewish soil saturated with pharisaic and 
apocalyptic teachings; and certainly it could not have out- 
lived the disappointment which must necessarily have ac- 
companied the indefinite postponement of the « parousia’’. 

With far more historical sense, Renan wrote: ‘‘ If founded 
upon a belief in the end of the world which the years as 
they rolled by must convince of error, the Galilean congrega- 
tion could only have ended by breaking up into anarchy ”’.! 
If, then, this handful of Galileans did not sink into its 
eschatology as into a grave, it 1s because eschatology was 
not the sole object of their faith, or even an essential 
feature in it. Harnack had forestalled Sabatier’s error, 
when he laid down as a principle that the Gospel was more 
than an apocalyptic message which had issued from the Old 
Testament, that it was ‘‘ a new thing,’ namely “the crea- 
tion of a universalist religion founded on that of the Old 
Testament,” * and founded, we will add, on the person of 
Christ. 

If such was the horizon of the Gospel, can we say that 
the first Christian communities did not think of any lasting 
organization? How did the first of these communities 


1“ Mare Auréle,” p. 407. 8“ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 48, 


150 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


begin to form other communities? Could it have formed 
others if it had not felt compelled to carry on an unlimited 
propagandism? Is not this propagation of the faith a first 
indication of the action of an apostolate, of that apostolate 
which Sabatier hardly mentions, but which was already the 
Church ? 

3. We are told that the Christian communities, in their 
earliest stage, hypnotized by their expectation of the « paro- 
usia,’ were subject to no action but that of the Spirit; that 
charisms seized on the first disciples, and the diversity of 
charisms gave rise to the first elements of organization. 

Here again Renan’s judgment is better. He writes: 
‘Free prophecy, the charisms, the speaking with tongues, 
and individual inspiration—this was more than was necessary 
to reduce the whole movement to the proportions of an 
ephemeral dissenting-sect, such as one sees so much of in 
America and in England. Individual inspiration creates, but 
destroys at once what it has created. After liberty, rule is 
necessary.” He continues: ‘‘The work of Jesus may be 
considered saved on the day on which it was admitted that 
the Church had a direct power—a power representing that 
of Jesus. The Church from that moment dominated the 
individual, and drove him if need were from her midst. 
Soon the Church, a body unstable and changing, was personi- 
fied in the elders, the powers of the Church became the 
powers of a clergy, who were the dispensers of all graces, 
the intermediaries between God and the believer. Inspira- 
tion passes from the individual to the community. The 
Church has become everything in Christianity; one step 
more, and the bishop becomes everything in the Church.” ! 

In these few lines Renan has well expressed the power- 
lessness of private inspiration to bring forth anything but 
anarchy. Starting from this psychological fact, we first ask 
Sabatier and Sohm: Why did not anarchy actually result Ὁ 
Then we ask Renan: Was it really only when the work of 
Jesus was jeopardized through the outpouring and contagious 
spread of charisms, that discipline arose to save His work? 
To unruly charisms, Renan opposes in each community the 
ancients or presbyters; but if their office did not come to 


1¢¢ Mare Aurele,”’ p. 408. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 151 


these ancients and presbyters in virtue of some higher privi- 
lege, whence and how did they get the power they exer- 
cised over the charisms themselves? Order could never have 
issued out of charismatic anarchy, had not some authority 
existed previously to the outpouring of the charisms—an au- 
thority which can only be that of the apostolate, continuing 
the authority of the Master. 

To say that every permanent ecclesiastical function is 
a charism which fixed and imposed itself, seems a mere 
conjecture as gratuitous as it 15 improbable; for the earliest 
permanent ecclesiastical function which history records is 
that of presbyters and of ancients—to which no charism 
corresponds—and the same remark can be made of the 
episcop, and the deacons. ‘The traditional view which 
derives episcopacy, not from any transformation of unknown 
charisms, but from the powers of the apostolate, is much 
more plausible; and accounts far more easily for the fact 
that in all Christian communities episcopacy was set on the 
same foundations. Is it not mocking us with words to tell 
us that this uniformity of development is explicable as ‘‘a 
case of the sport of general laws which rule social pheno- 
mena of this order”?! 

4. Sabatier had no trouble to find in St. Paul the 
idea of the Church as the mystical body of Christ: and 
he claims it as the leading idea which guided the evolu- 
tion of the various Christian communities and led it ulti- 
mately to Catholicism. Sabatier, who has an eclectic 
method, may have borrowed this particular element in his 
theory from Sohm, in whose judgment the word ἐκκλησία 
was first used to designate Christendom in general, the new 
people of God made up of the Christians spread all over the 


1 We do not, however, intend to deny the influence exercised on the 
growth of the organization of Churches, (1) by the institutions which pre- 
vailed in jewries and which a religion, born in the midst of Judaism, 
could not ignore, (2) by the conditions of life and thought, which necessarily 
dominated the followers of a religion so essentially social as Christianity. 
Mer. DucuesnE, “Origines du culte ” (1898), pp. 7-10, has assigned their 
proper share to these two historical elements. On the contrary, Harnack, 
‘* Kirche und Staat,” p. 132, makes them too preponderant. We must say 
the same of the supposed influence of municipal institutions ; these were 
never directly imitated by the churches, DucHEsNE, p. 12. 


152 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


world; or he may have borrowed it from Harnack who sees 
in the spiritual unity of Christians, separated from the Jewish 
people and henceforth constituting the true Israel, an affir- 
mation of faith that was present to the consciousness of 
Christians, and was operative from the very beginning.’ 
Were this the case, the idea of the Church of God would not 
be exclusively Pauline; it would attach to Christianity from 
the very fact that, by separating itself from Judaism, it be- 
came denationalized. 

We may here call attention to the embarrassment of 
those critics who, adhering exclusively to the idea of an 
invisible Church, strive to account for its formation. Ac- 
cording to Sabatier, it is a Pauline creation; according to 
Harnack, it is the necessary conclusion to which the Chris- 
tian consciousness came in its search for an ideal unity that 
could replace the racial unity of the people of God. MHavr- 
nack’s hypothesis seems very frail, for one does not see why 
it was necessary for the Gentile converts to substitute for 
the racial unity of the people of God of which they had had 
no experience, an ideal unity which nothing in them de- 
manded. We should prefer to say with Sabatier that the 
communities founded by St. Paul, being “‘children of the 
same father,’ were bound together by ‘‘very close family 
ties’. But did they really owe these ties to the fact that 
they had been founded by St. Paul? Had the Churches 
never known any other missionary than St. Paul? Was he 
a stranger to the Romans, whom he had not yet visited 
when he wrote to them his Epistle? No, a bond did 
truly unite the Pauline communities, but that bond did 


1 ἐς Kirchenrecht,” pp. 16-22 ; ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. 14, pp. 51, 89. True, 
Harnack declares later (p. 489) that ‘‘it was not theories that created the 
empiric unity of the Churches, for theories were incapable of overcoming 
the elementary causes of difference that could not fail to operate as soon 
as Christianity became naturalized in the various provinces and towns of 
the Empire”. Hence he ascribes the unity of Christendom to the 
‘‘unity which the Empire possessed in Rome”. To this must be added 
the peculiar character of the Roman Church, which was at the same 
time Greek and Latin, which was rich and zealous, and ‘‘ displayed much 
solicitude for all Christendom”. All these causes contributed to “ convert 
the Christian communities into a real confederation ‘under the primacy 
of the Roman community”, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 153 


not depend on St. Paul, who was not an Apostle to lend 
himself to ideas of this kind: “15 Christ divided? Was 
Paul then crucified for you? or were you baptized in the 
name of Paul?.” (1 Cor. 1. 13). 

The faithful did not retain the name of ‘“‘ disciples,” 
which had been borne by the sole disciples of the one 
Master: they took that of ‘‘ brethren” (ἀδελφοί), which, as 
has been rightly pointed out by Weizsiacker, well expresses 
their consciousness of the bond that united all together in 
Jesus Christ.! The universality of the use of the name 
“brethren ’’ witnesses to a fundamental article of faith, the 
faith in a new birth which made the Christian who had it 
not merely the citizen of a heavenly and future city, but the 
brother of existing brethren, and therefore the member of 
an earthly community which is primarily the local Church. 
Since the faithful were equally brethren, from whatever place 
they came, all these communities bore a name that was the 
same everywhere, ἐκκλησία, a name just as concrete as that 
of “‘ synagogue,” to which it was opposed. The conscious- 
ness of their fraternity and their continual social experience 
of it, however dispersed they might be, showed clearly to 
these ‘‘brethren”’ that their communities were united by a 
bond resembling that by which they were united individu- 
ally. The Churches of the various provinces were thought 
of in groups: Christians spoke of the Churches of Judea, 
of Achaia, of Galatia, and thus came very naturally and 
gradually to conceive of a Church of all the Churches, the 
Church of all the ‘‘ brethren” spread over the whole world. ? 

1 WEIZSACKER, pp. 35-38 ; cf. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. pp. 336-47. 

2 In his ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 362 and foll., Harnack, treating of the 
formation by communities and of its part in the spread of Christianity, 
reaches the same conclusion as ourselves. Christian preaching, he writes, 
“from the very outset worked through a community, and had for its aim 
to form a union of believers”. This union would have remained merely 
ideal, and would not have been easily effective, had it not been allied 
with a local organization. ‘‘ Christianity from the first borrowed this 
organization from Judaism, from the synagogue; the first Apostles and 
the brothers of Jesus laid the foundation. Designed to be essentially a 
brotherhood, and springing out of the synagogue, each Christian com- 
munity developed a local organization which was twice as strong as that of 
Judaism’’. Later (p. 364) Harnack recalls the features of this community 
idea, so marked in the Pauline Epistles, and writes: ‘‘Paul’s Epistles 


154 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Thus the “‘ great idea’’ is not restricted to the Pauline 
missions; it lies at the very heart of all the commu- 
nities that came into existence whether on Gentile or on 
Jewish soil. 

5. The fall of Jerusalem, in the year 70, did not in- 
fluence the Gentile communities, because Jerusalem had no 
important place in their faith. Nowhere in fact do we find 
any trace of emotion aroused in the souls of Christians by 
this great catastrophe. 

The fall of Jerusalem could have influenced only that 
Judzo-Christianity whose emissaries had so often thwarted 
the preaching of St. Paul; but, before the year 70, even 
before the year 64, the separation of Christianity from 
Judaism had become an actual fact. This separation, which 
amounted to a sharp and final rupture, had been the end 
of Judeo-Christianity, in so far as it was a Jewish propa- 
gandism in the Gentile communities. It survived in the 
““Kbionite” or ‘‘ Nazarene’ communities, who were separ- 
ated from the rest of the world by their religious tongue, as 
may be inferred from the «« Gospel according to the Hebrews ”’. 
Nor can these Ebionites be said to represent ‘‘ primitive 
orthodoxy,” since they, who believed in Christ, practised 
circumcision : they were orthodox neither as Jews, nor as 
Christians. The part Baur ascribed to them in the genesis 
of Catholicism appears more and more unreal, a mere fancy 
excogitated to meet the requirements of an hyperhistorical 
speculation. ‘‘ The question is whether this Jewish Christi- 


prove how vigorously and unweariedly he taught these lessons, and it is 
perhaps the weightiest feature both in Christianity and in the work of 
Paul that, so far from being overpowered, the impulse towards association 
was most powerfully intensified by the individualism which here attained 
its zenith.” Speaking of Clement and Ignatius (p. 366), ‘‘ Never,” he 
says, ‘‘has the absolute subordination of Christians to the local com- 
munity been more peremptorily demanded, or the position of the local 
community itself more eloquently assigned, than in these primitive 
documents”. Lastly, as regards the monarchical episcopate (p. 369), 
“ Tonatius had already compared the position of the bishop in the local 
Church with that of God in the Church collective. . . . As the office 
grew to maturity, it seemed like an original creation; although it had 
only drawn to itself from all quarters the powers and the forms already 
existing’. Except for a few details, all this fourth chapter of the third 
book witnesses to the Catholic idea of Christian origins. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 155 


anity as a whole, or in certain of its tendencies, was any 
factor at all in the development of Christianity into Cathol1- 
cism. This question is to be answered in the negative, quite 
as much in view of the history of dogma as in view of the 
political history of the Church. From the standpoint of 
the universal history of Christianity, these Jewish Christian 
communities appear as atrophied organs which now and 
again, as objects of curiosity, engaged the attention of the 
main body of Christendom in the Kast, but could not exert 
any important influence on it, just because they were a 
purely national party.” ἢ 

The fall of Jerusalem, then, did not displace the centre 
of gravity of Christianity, because Christianity was, even 
then, external to Judaism, and because, at the time of St. 
Paul’s missions, Judzo-Christianity had been set aside in 
most of the Gentile communities. Can we say, however, 
that these Gentile communities adopted a neutral doctrine, 
partly Jewish, partly Greek, which was unable to assimilate 
St. Paul’s theology? We recognize here the old antithesis 
of the Tiibingen school, which was bent on opposing Judso- 
Christianity to Paulinism, and on disengaging from this 
conflict a neutral element which was to be the doctrine of 
the future. 

Asa matter of fact, Gentile Christianity took its position 
as early as the first generation outside Judeo-Christian in- 
fluence. Nor is the freedom of Gentile Christianity from 
all connexion with the Jewish people and its law due to St. 
Paul alone: whilst he did perhaps more than any one else 
to bring about this result, others, too, worked for it effectively. 
Christian communities just as free from Judaism as the 
Corinthian community—for instance, the community of 
Alexandria and that of Rome—did not have St. Paul for their 
founder. If, then, ‘‘ Paulinism’’ means primarily the de- 
nationalization of Christianity, ‘‘ Paulinism”’ is everywhere. 

These Gentile Christians could not be converted, nor 
could they afterwards keep the faith, unless that faith were 
simple, and, as it were, rudimentary. This, St. Paul was 
not the last to realize: his catechesis is easily found, even 


1 Harnack, ‘‘Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 313. Cf. Hoénnickn, ‘‘ Das 
Judenchristentum,” p. 368, who holds the same opinion as Harnack, 


156 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


in the most difficult epistles. In this catechesis, the 
mystery of Jesus continues to hold a central place, and how 
could it be otherwise? On the other hand, this presentation 
of the faith is something popular, neutral, Greek—it matters 
not how you qualify it, but it is noteworthy that this ele- 
ment, far from being foreign to Paul’s preaching, actually 
belongs to it. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
who has some hard truths to explain to his readers, com- 
plains that they are slow to understand, and that he is still 
obliged to give them only milk, as to children, instead of 
the strong food of strong men (Heb. v. 11-13). St. Paul 
speaks in like manner to his converts at Corinth (1 Cor. 
ΠῚ 1-2). 

We may conclude that in this way a faith came to pre- 
vail, which was not a reaction against Judeo-Christianity, 
or against Paulinism, but was the direct outcome of the 
preaching of Christianity in the Gentile world, and is found 
in no small measure in the Epistles of St. Paul himself. 
True, this faith, like the Gospel itself, had its roots in the 
tradition of Israel, and it meant to preserve the Old Testa- 
ment. The Greek mind influenced it by means of the 
language which it lent to it. However, we cannot, properly 
speaking, call this a middle position, for it was truly a 
common faith, a kind of Christian κοινὴ διάλεκτος, elemen- 
tary and simplified, bound, like any doctrine which was to 
spread, to adopt formulas that could be easily transported 
from place to place in the minds of the hearers. This the- 
ology, this “‘ first basis of Catholic doctrine,” the Apostolic 
Fathers did not create, for it was substantially and from the 
beginning the catechesis given to the Gentile converts: it 
was the Christian faith presented in a missionary form.? 

6. Greeco-Roman Christianity needed a centre. Rome, 
we are told, became the capital of Christendom, because she 
was already the capital of the Empire; then Rome stamped 
Greeco-Roman Christianity with the impress of her genius of 
government. Roman imperialism took the place of Jewish 


‘Prat, pp. 81-3. Cf. Weizsicker, vol. 1. pp. 92-102 and 634-37. 
who explains the chief topics of St. Paul’s preaching to the Gentiles. 

2See the similar remarks of Harwnack, “ Mission,” vol. 1. pp. 319- 
25 and “ Lukas der Arzt, p. 101, 


THE INFANT CHURCH 157 


nationalism which had been set aside. This was a new factor 
in Catholicism, in the first and second centuries, for, in the 
third century, Rome would have no longer been able to ex- 
ercise that influence. ‘‘That extraordinary city was at the 
culminating point of its grandeur; nothing allowed one to 
foresee the events which, in the third century, would cause 
it to degenerate and become nothing more than the capital 
of the West. Greek was at least as much spoken there as 
Latin, and the great future secession of the East could not 
be guessed.” ! 

To this view of the part taken by Rome in the genesis 
of Catholicism, Renan was the first to ascribe historical 
importance. ΤῸ the scandal of German Protestantism, it 
has been strongly advocated by Harnack2 It has been 
insisted on still more systematically by Sohm. We who 
believe in the providential character of this co-operation of 
Rome in the part to be played by the Cathedra Petri, shall 
not be so ungracious as to contest it; we take exception 
only to the terms of civil government used to describe it, 
and to the tendency to transform into a generative cause 
what is only a circumstance. 

7. We may notice that Protestant critics have already, 
however much against their will, transported to the heart of 
the Apostolic age some of the factors in the ‘‘formation of 
Catholicism”. This is a consequence of the retrogression 
which has gradually taken place, since the days of Baur, 
Ritschl and Renan, in the study of some questions closely 
connected with that of the ‘‘formation of Catholicism ”— 
such as, above all others, the question of the origin of 
episcopacy, and also that of the authenticity of the Ignatian 


1 Renan, “Mare Auréle,” p. 69. 

*In his well-known Excursus “Catholic and Roman,” ‘“ Dogmeng.” 
vol. 14, pp. 480-96. Sonm, p. 157 and foll. It must not be forgotten 
that the insistency with which these critics exalt Roman hegemony 
is but a new form of prejudice. Feeling the theory which explains 
Catholicism as a realization of the invisible Church to be insufficient, 
they have devised the complementary theory, which explains it as an 
imperialization of ecclesiastical life. Cf. two pages of far greater histori- 
cal exactness in Mgr. Ducnzsne, ‘‘ Hist. Anc.,” vol. 1. pp. 536-38, and 
the criticism of Harnack’s Excursus by Dom Cuapman, ‘‘ The Catholicity 
of the Church,” in Maruew, ‘‘ Ecclesia,” pp. 82-8. 


158 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hpistles.1 Were the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles, 
still so much contested, generally admitted, as is the authen- 
ticity of the Ignatian Epistles, the displacing of the question 
would be still more perceptible, and the importance of what 
some critics are pleased to call the crisis of the second 
century would be very considerably diminished. 

For this crisis, which is said to have occurred in the 
years 150-80, would not have the importance which, since 
Ritschl, a certain number of critics ascribe to it, except for 
the two results which are attributed to it: the formation of 
a statutory faith everywhere the same, and the formation 
of an episcopal government everywhere supreme. But do 
these two institutions really issue from the reaction against 
Gnosticism and Montanism ? 

Harnack, who, in this particular case deserves credit for 
introducing into the doctrinal history of the first two cen- 
turies a sociological consideration which is new, and which 
enables him better to understand, from an historical point of 
view, the formation of Christianity into a Church, has not 
failed to recognize that, as early as the period 30-130, every 
Christian community has its unity secured by the existence 
of a collective worship, of collective funds, and of officers 
entrusted with worship, discipline, and charitable works. 
I fear indeed that he does not recognize in those early com- 
munities any other features than such as they have in 


*One cannot help smiling over the long resistance made by Protes- 
tant critics to the claims to authenticity of the seven Ignatian Epistles. In 
1835, Baur thought they had been composed at Rome towards the middle 
of the second century by some forger, on behalf of episcopacy. In 1850, 
and still later in 1857, Ritsch] postponed their composition to the fourth 
century, and held to be authentic only the three Epistles to Polycarp, to 
the Ephesians, and to the Romans, in the Syriac version—an abbreviated 
and rather tame document, edited by Cureton in 1845. As late as 1877, 
Renan regarded as authentic the Epistle to the Romans alone. Finally, 
after dating them from the time of Hadrian or Antoninus, Harnack, 
who admits the authenticity of the seven Epistles, assigns them to their 
true period, the age of Trajan. We may notice here the vicious circle : 
Renan deems the ecclesiology of the Ignatian Epistles too mature to be- 
long to the beginning of the second century. “All this,” he says, ‘‘ be- 
longs, not to the beginning, but to the end of the second century.” 
Compare with this systematic postponement LicHrroot’s luminous re- 
marks, ‘‘ Christian Ministry,” pp. 145-8. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 159 


common with the Evangelical communities of the kingdom 
of Prussia. At all events, after thus proclaiming the char- 
acteristic unity of every community, he signalizes what he 
calls ‘‘the beginnings of interecclesiastical dispositions,” 
which unite the widely dispersed communities by means of 
collections and letters, as well as of hospitality offered to 
travelling brethren; and which “secure in all important 
questions the solidarity of the evolution ”’. And he adds: 
“A single centre of unity, such as Judaism had as long as 
the temple was standing, the earliest Christianity had 
not; but it did have several centres, among which at a very 
early date Rome was the most important.’ 

Hence, long before the year 150, long before the crisis 
caused by Gnosticism and Montanism, there existed an inter- 
ecclesiastical bond, there existed influential rallying centres, 
there existed among the Churches a good understanding 
which ‘‘ secured a common process of evolution in all im- 
portant matters”. Harnack assures us that, in the year 
220, there existed a Church not merely ideal and spiritual, 
i.e. invisible, but one which from the Euphrates to Spain, 
was visibly constituted, forming a genuine political organism.” 
That is true, but it is not enough. If from the year 220 this 
historical reality is henceforth undeniable, how can one say 
that it is new? Is there no continuity between the state 
of things which is perfectly manifest in the year 220 (and as 
much might be said of the year 180), and the state of things 
revealed by the Ignatian Epistles and by the ‘ Prima Cle- 
mentis”? True, the characteristic features became gradu- 
ally more and more pronounced, but if, during the second 
century, Gnosticism is driven out from the Churches; if it 
succeeds, wherever it appears, only in organizing itself into 
dissenting conventicles or into schools; if it is everywhere 
looked upon and treated as heresy, is not this a proof that 
the Churches are already constituted on the basis of a most 
solid faith under the rule of episcopi who justify their name 
by their vigilance, and are bound together by a solidarity 
which has already become a confederacy.* 


1 ἐς Kirche und Staat,” p. 136. 3 Ibid. p. 141. 
3 See the Excursus in Harnack’s ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. pp. 373-97, “‘ Ke- 
clesiastical Organization and the Episcopate, from Pius to Constantine ”. 


100 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hence an attentive historical study discovers in the Chris- 
tianity anterior to the so-called crisis of Gnosticism some- 
thing other than an amorphous religion; the energies that 
were thought to have originated after the year 150, are seen 
to have been at work as early as the first three Christian 
generations; and far from appearing as the result of an anti- 
Gnostic reaction, they manifest themselves as forces which 
prevent Gnosticism from finding a home in the Churches. 

8. There remains the assertion which ascribes to Rome 
the editing of “the Apostles’ Creed”. This symbol is 
certainly the baptismal symbol of the Roman Church. 
From its literary history we may infer that, at Rome, it is 
at least coeval with Irenzeus, Marcion, and Justin, but every- 
thing leads us to believe that it is very much older. It is 
not correct to say that this Roman text was, in some way, 
imposed by Rome on all the Churches towards the end of 
the second century. In the time of Tertullian Christian 
Africa had this creed in common with Rome, but we cannot 
affirm the same of the Greek Churches, where the direct in- 
fluence of the ‘‘ Apostles’ Creed’ cannot be detected before 
the Council of Nica. It may be doubted whether, before 
this Council, the Oriental Churches had any liturgical formu- 
lary of their faith. The history of the Roman symbol may 
be summed up in these few propositions; and it suffices 
to show that this symbol did not play the dominating part 
ascribed to it by Sabatier.} 


The author states and shows that ‘‘the tendency of early Christianity to 
form complete, independent communities, under episcopal government, 
was extremely strong” (p. 389). When a locality had no bishop, it was 
because the number of Christians was insignificant (p. 391). The 
hypothesis that, wherever during the third century there are found com- 
munities without a bishop, they represent a survival of the primitive or- 
ganization, is not only improbable, but erroneous (p. 397). 

' For a fuller historical exposition of this point, I take the liberty to 
refer the reader to my article ‘‘ Apétres (Symbole des)” in Vacant’s 
“ Dictionnaire de théologie”. Karrensusca, “Das Apostolische Symbol, 
seine Entstehung . . .” (1894-1900), who has published what I believe to 
be the profoundest study of the history of the Roman symbol—a study 
which is not exempt, however, from many a foregone conclusion—has con- 
tributed to a very large extent to overthrow the classical Protestant theorem. 
Kattenbusch thinks that the Roman symbol (R) was composed at Rome 
about the year 100. In the West, as early as the second century, R was 


THE INFANT CHURCH 161 


Τί we look uponit asa ‘‘ monument of Catholic orthodoxy,” 
should we at any rate consider it to be the earliest mani- 
festation and the oldest monument of that orthodoxy, a 
document composed under the influence of an arbitrary and 
pre-arranged eclecticism? The hypothesis is that previ- 
ously the baptismal formula alone existed; that at the time 
of the anti-Gnostic crisis, a few clear and decisive articles 
were added to it, and that this short “Syllabus” of the 
second century defined the faith when threatened with dis- 
solution. 

To this hypothesis we can oppose the text itself of the 
“Symbol of the Apostles”. As a matter of fact, it is diffi- 
cult to find a document that has less the appearance of a 
series of anathemas, and conveys less the thought of doc- 
trinal attack and defence: it shows no anti-Gnostic pre- 
occupation whatever. Being so elementary in its tenor, how 
could it have sufficed to guard the faithful at large against 
the Gnostic errors! In reality, it merely sets forth the 
catechetical faith for the benefit of simple-minded Chris- 
tians, to whom Gnosticism, a learned error, must have been 
altogether strange. 

Again, was not the common faith of the Churches suf- 
ficiently self-conscious to define its own meaning in clear 


received both at Rome and in the Churches of Gaul and Africa. As to the 
Churches of Greece (Corinth, Athens, Thessalonica), we know nothing, 
owing to the lack of documents ; the same may be said of the provinces of 
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and of Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Origen 
seems to know a symbol similar to R, perhaps R itself, but whether this 
symbol was received in Egypt we cannot say. All the Eastern symbols of 
the fourth century seem to come from Antioch; it may be surmised that 
R appeared for the first time at Antioch, after the deposition of Paul 
of Samosata. In the province of Asia, R was known during the second 
half of the second century, perhaps owing to Polycarp(?). See the 
conclusions of Kattenbusch, vol. 1. pp. 960-1; substantially similar 
are those of Harnack, art. “Apostolisches Symbolum” in Havcr’s 
“Realencyklopiidie”. However, we must distinguish the strictly so-called 
baptismal symbol from the requla fidei or κανὼν exxAnovaoriKds—so often 
appealed to by ecclesiastical writers, for instance Ivenzeus, Tertullian, 
Clement, Origen—which represents a more complete and detailed body of 
doctrines than the liturgical profession of faith. On this point, which 
is disputed among Protestant critics (Harnack, Zahn, Kattenbusch, 
Kunze), see Loors, pp. 131-2. 
it 


162 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


and precise articles, before the late epoch (150-60) in which 
we are told the ‘‘ Symbol of the Apostles’’ was constituted ? 
The articles of this creed have nothing particularly Roman 
in them, nor do they imply any particular date. They are 
found equivalently in the Apologists, like Justin and Aristides, 
and also in St. Ignatius. They are found ina scattered 
state in the Christian literary remains of the Apostolic age. 

Finally, if we merely wish to ascertain if the object of 
the faith is determined and traditional, and not amorphous 
or plastic, it suffices to reflect that faith is not presented in 
the primitive Christian literature as a gnosis which every 
Christian frames for himself, but as a διδαχή, a παράδοσις, 
ὃ κάνων πίστεως, and other synonymous expressions. Nothing 
is more alien to the Christianity of the early ages, than the 
idea that the believer remains autonomous in presence of 
the faith.} . 

9. After all that has just been said, it may be unnecessary 
to dwell on the share attributed to Montanism in the growth 


1For the justification of this statement, it might suffice to refer to 
the appendix added by Harnack to Haun’s collection, ‘‘ Bibliothek der 
Symbole und Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche,” third edition (Breslau, 
1897), pp. 364-90. 

But it is opportune here to take notice of the theory according to 
which, from the beginning, the faith was presented in the shape of a kind 
of historical and moral summary : historical as in 1 Cor. x1. 23 and xv. 3, 
moral as in 1 Cor. ΧΙ. 2; ἢ summary of which numerous traces are said 
to be discoverable in the New Testament. This theory, which is a 
noteworthy advance towards the Catholic principle of tradition, has 
been proposed by WeizsdcxER, ‘‘ Apost. Zeitalter,” p. 594, who dis- 
covers what he ingeniously calls a ‘‘ Christian Halacha,” in Rom. vi. 17, 
xvi. 17; 2 Thess. τι. 14; 1 Cor. τν. 17. Karrenspuscn (‘‘ Apost. Symb.” 
vol. 11. pp. 335-47, ‘‘the New Testament and the Symbol’’) shares the 
same view, and cites (p. 345) one of the earliest articles of Harnack, written 
in the same sense. Foilowing in the same direction, Seeberg has endea- 
voured to reconstruct what he calls the catechism of primitive Christianity 
(‘‘ Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit,” Leipzig, 1903). In an essay of 
which I know only the title, Wernle had advanced the hypothesis that the 
lists of sins, so often found in the New Testament, proceed from a tradi- 
tional formula (‘‘ Der Christ und die Siinde bei Paulus,” 1897). G. Rescu 
(‘‘ Aposteldekret,” p. 92 and foll.), takes up Seeberg’s hypothesis. Hvi- 
dently the Ritschlian thesis of a kind of doctrinal challenge, formed 
artificially during the second half of the second century, is being 
abandoned. 


THE INFANT CHURCH 163 


of Catholicism. Montanism is a late movement: it was 
only in the year 177 that it created any stir in Western 
Christendom; and, at this date, the authority of bishops 
was nowhere disputed. ‘The Church,” says Renan, “‘ was 
already too strongly constituted for the undisciplined habits 
of the visionaries of Phrygia to do her real harm.”! As to 
the attitude of Rome, her resistance to Montanism, so far 
from being more ardent than that of other places, was 
singularly moderate and hesitating, so much so that the 
authorities there came very near to favouring the Phrygian 
prophets. To say that Rome saved the hierarchy is an 
affirmation which is groundless, and even improbable; to 
say that she crowned the victory, by creating the theory of 
Apostolic succession, is to forget that the theory of Apostolic 
succession had been formulated by the ‘‘ Prima Clementis”’ 
some hundred years before. 


1“‘Marc Aurele,” p. 225. 


af 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AXUS. 


AxoutT the year 180, Ireneus is the dogmatist who brings to 
an end—so we are told in some modern histories of dogmas 
—the anti-gnostic and anti-montanist crisis; he is the first of 
the ‘‘old Catholic” Fathers; he is the author of the theory 
of such victorious principles as the authority of the rule of 
faith, the authority of the episcopal succession, the authority 
of the confederation of bishops: it is he who synthesizes 
Catholicism and imparts to it its definitive and ‘‘ Roman ”’ 
expression. . . . We hope to show how systematic and 
Protestant this presentation is. For us St. Irensus is an 
excellent exponent of the theory of Catholicism; but there is 
hardly a single element of his theory that is not anterior to 
his time; and the principles on which he insists are those 
organic principles which, obscurely or explicitly, characterize 
Gentile Christianity from the very beginning. 

If we study first the forerunners of Irenzus during the 
second century and then his contemporaries, we shall easily 
see that his principles are not of his own creation. We 
shall then endeavour to solve the problem which Harnack 
propounds as insoluble, namely, ‘‘To what extent were the 
principles of Ireneus new, to what extent were the rules 
he formulated already received in the Churches, and in 
which of them?’’! 


I, 


The Epistle to the Philippians, written by the Bishop 
of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, is the only one which has reached 


1“¢Togmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 352. The reader may consult with profit 
J. Durst, ‘‘The Historic Church: an Essay on the conception of the 
Christian Church and its Ministry in the Sub-Apostolic Age” (Cam- 
bridge, 1906). 
164 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 165 


us of those many Epistles! which according to St. Irenzeus 
he wrote both to individual Christians and ‘ to neighbouring 
Churches,” to warn some, and strengthen others—a new 
index of the constant communications going on between the 
Churches during the second century. 

Polyearp of Smyrna writes to the Philippians, i.e. to a 
Church of Macedonia. They have asked him to send them 
a letter: ‘‘You invited me,’ he can say to them; and he 
adds that neither he nor any one else can in any way pre- 
tend to equal the wisdom of St. Paul who brought them 
“the word of truth”.? All that he can do, is to give ad- 
vice to the faithful, deacons, and presbyters of Philippi. 

These counsels recall those of the Pastoral Epistles, as 
well as those of the Ignatian Epistles: ‘‘You must,” says 
Polycarp, ‘“‘submit yourselves to the presbyters and deacons 
as to God and Christ” (v. 3). They must shun all vain and 
empty teaching and the common error: an allusion to 
heathenism, and perhaps—already—to Gnosticism. They 
must abide steadfast by the Lord’s commands and by what 
the Lord has taught (11. 1-3). They must forsake any one 
who ‘will not confess the testimony of the Cross”: words 
that refer certainly to the same Docetism as that opposed 
by St. Ignatius. ‘‘ For every one who will not confess that 
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is an antichrist . . . and 
whosoever shall pervert the logia of the Lord to his own 
lusts, and say that there is neither resurrection nor judg- 
ment, that man is the first born of Satan.’”’® Here we find 
what we had already found in St. Ignatius: heretics 
exploiting the Gospel records and interpreting them in the 
sense of their errors. ‘‘ Wherefore, let us forsake the vain 
doing of the many and their false teachings, and turn unto 
the word which was delivered unto us from the beginning.* 


1 Kuses. “Ἢ. EH.” v. 20, 8. Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians 
was written not long after the death of St. Ignatius, which took place 
under Trajan, within the period 107-17. 

? Potycarp, “ Philip.” m1. 1-2. 

*<* Philip.” vir. 1. With these last words compare the fact recorded 
of the Apostle St. John by St. Irenzeus, who got it from St. Polycarp, 
concerning the meeting of Cerinthus and St. John, ‘‘ H. EH.” 11. 28, 6. 

4“ Philip.” vi. 2: ἐπὶ τὸν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἡμῖν παραδοθέντα λύγον ἐπιστρέ- 
oper. 


106 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Let us . . . serve the Lord with fear and all reverence, as 
He Himself gave commandment, as did also the Apostles 
who preached the Gospel to us, and the prophets who 
proclaimed beforehand the coming of our Lord.’’! 

The Bishop of Smyrna answers directly the argument 
urged against St. Ignatius by the Docetz of Philadelphia. 
That appeal may be made to the Lord’s logia, these great 
bishops are most willing to grant; but there must be no 
commentary, no dialectical explanation; the doctrine received 
from the first must be held. The faith which is the true 
faith and claims our assent is that preached by the Lord and 
by the Apostles, and announced by .the prophets of Israel. 
Faith is based upon the “sacred Writings,’?1.e. upon the 
Old Testament, and the authentic teaching of the Lord and 
of the Apostles, such as it has been transmitted from the 
beginning. 

Polycarp died on 23 February, 155; it cannot then be 
said that the rule of faith outlined in this Epistle even 
before the year 120—viz. the submission of the faithful to 
the presbyters in every Church, fidelity to the teaching im- 
parted from the beginning by the Apostles who evangelized 
the Churches—was first propounded between the years 150 
and 180, in the heat of the fight of the Churches against 
Gnosticism. 

An incident told of St. Polycarp by St. Irenzeus witnesses 
to the identity of the attitude of these two Bishops and the 
identity of their method. Writing to a Roman presbyter, 
Florinus, who has been seduced by the Gnosticism of Val- 
entinus, St. Ireneeus rebukes him for his errors:* ‘These 
opinions,* O Florinus, I speak with assurance, are not sound 


1‘ Philip.” v1.3: καθὼς αὐτὸς ἐνετείλατο, καὶ οἱ εὐαγγελισάμενοι ἡμᾶς 
ἀπόστολοι, καὶ οἱ προφῆται κιτιλ. Cf. 1x. 1: Παύλῳ καὶ τοῖς λοιποῖς 
ἀποστόλοις. 

5.“ Philip.” xu. 1: καλῶς γεγυμνασμένοι ἐστὲ ἐν ταῖς ἱεραῖς γραφαῖς. 

> TREN. ap. Husss. “Η. HE.” v. 20, 4-7. 

δόγματα. Here the word δόγματα is taken in the sense of opinion, 
like the distinctive views or opinions of the various schools of philosophy. 
On the sense attached by the Greeks to the word ‘‘ dogma’ see EK. Harcu, 
“Πρ Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church” 
(London, 1890), p. 120. In classical Greek, the word δόγματα may be 
translated placita philosophorum. We may say it is synonymous with 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤᾺΝ ΦΠΌΣ 167 


in doctrine. These opinions disagree with the Church, and 
lead to the greatest impiety those who accept them. These 
opinions, not even the heretics outside of the Church have 
ever dared to express. These opinions, the presbyters, who 
were before us, and who were companions of the Apostles, 
did not deliver to thee. 

‘For when I was a boy, in lower Asia, where you were 
conspicuous by reason of your employment at the court, I 
used to see you by the side of Polycarp,! endeavouring to 
gain his approbation. I remember the events of that time 
more clearly than those of more recent years. For what we 
learn in our boyhood grows with our minds, and becomes a 
part of them; so that I am able to describe the very place 
in which the blessed Polycarp sat as he discoursed, his gait, his 
physiognomy, his manner of life, his features, his discourses to 
those present, and the accounts which he gave of his inter- 
course with John and with the others who had seen the 
Lord. And all that he heard from them concerning the 
Lord, and concerning His miracles and His teaching, having 
received them from eye-witnesses of the Word of life, Poly- 
carp related in harmony with the Scriptures. 

‘“‘ These things, thanks to the mercy of God, I listened to 
attentively, noting them down, not on paper, but in my 
heart. And continually, through God’s grace, I recall them 
faithfully. And Iam able to bear witness before God that, 
if that blessed and apostolic presbyter had heard any such 
thing [fas your doctrines], he would have cried out, and 
stopped his ears, and, as was his custom, would have ex- 
claimed, O good God, unto what times hast thou kept me 


αἵρεσις. It means also a decree, an edict, enacted by the public author- 
ities; and this meaning it has in the New Testament (Luke 1. 1; 
Acts xvii. 7). It is synonymous with διάταγμα (Heb. xt. 23). We 
find it thus understood by St. Paul (Eph. 1.15; Col. 1.14. Cf. Acts 
Xvi. 4). 

‘The words ἐν τῇ βασιλικῇ αὐλῇ present an enigma which as yet has 
not been explained. Hadrian visited Asia in 122 and in 129, and L. Verus 
in 162. Weknow of no other stay of any Emperor in Asia, and these dates 
hardly fit in with Polycarp’s age. Lightfoot suggests that it may be an 
allusion to the court of the proconsul of Asia. This, about 136, was T. 
Aurelius Fulvus who later on became Emperor under the name of An- 
toninus Pius (Licurroor, ‘ Tgnatius,” vol. 1. p. 448). 


108 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


that I should endure these things? And he would have fled 
from the place where he had heard such words.” 

The language of St. Irenzus is his own; but the lan- 
guage he ascribes to St. Polycarp is like it, in its apostolic 
candour. Polycarp would close his ears to the Gnostic 
novelties, because his faith had for its criterion the teaching 
given from the beginning by the Apostles and the others 
who had seen the Lord. Papias, a companion of Polycarp, 
will uphold the same criterion in the same terms. ‘This 
appeal to the Apostles’ authority was by no means a con- 
troversial expedient: it appertains to the faith of those 
venerable ancients, who can speak of the Apostles as old 
men speak of the by-gone generation which witnessed their 
own youth. 

As regards the solidarity of the various Churches, St. 
Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians gives an excellent testi- 
mony. Polycarp sends his Epistle to Philippi through a 
Christian named Crescens, who, after staying for a while at 
Smyrna, leaves for Macedonia with his sister ; the Bishop of 
Smyrna recommends both to the kindness of the Church of 
Philippi.' This is ἃ mere exercise of interecclesiastical 
hospitality ; what follows is more significant. “1 was ex- 
ceedingly grieved about Valens, who was aforetime made a 
presbyter among you, because he so misunderstands the office 
which was given unto him. I warn you therefore that you 
refrain from covetousness, and that you be pure and faithful. 
Refrain from all evil. He who cannot govern himself in 
these things, how doth he instruct others? ’”’? 

The Bishop of Smyrna, then, has been told of the ac- 
cusations brought by the Philippians against one of their 
presbyters (perhaps their bishop): he intervenes and re- 
proves the culprit, as though he had authority to do so. 
The trials of a particular Church are known to distant 
Churches, and the Churches admonish one another in a 
brotherly spirit. May we not assume that what takes place 
in questions of conduct and of discipline occurs likewise in 
matters of faith? 


us! Palin. xxv: 

514. xt. 1-2. Polycarp says that Valens ἀγνοεῖ τὸν δοθέντα αὐτῷ 
τόπον. The word τόπος designates the rank in the hierarchy. Lieur- 
Foor, ‘‘ Ignatius,” vol. τι. p. 333. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 169 


Most assuredly, and the more so that in this regard uni- 
versal attention is at its highest pitch: as much is said by 
the Pastoral Epistles and those of Ignatius. In confirmation, 
we can cite a passage from the Epistle of St. Irenseus to 
Pope Victor: the letter dates from the time of the Paschal 
controversy, 1.6. from about the year 190, but it mentions 
a fact about St. Polycarp which must be assigned to the 
time when St. Anicetus presided over the Roman Church, 
that is, to the year 155 or a little before. 

Polycarp came to Rome, Ireneus relates,! under Anicetus, 
and they had some little difficulties, but soon came to an 
understanding. On the subject of Haster, neither made any 
concession to the other, but they did not cease to live in 
peace. Anicetus was unable to persuade Polycarp to give 
up a custom which he held from John, the Lord’s disciple, 
and from the other Apostles. Nor could Polycarp persuade 
Anicetus to discard what he called the tradition of the pres- 
byters who had preceded him in the Roman Church. 

So, the Bishop of Smyrna goes to Rome, at a time when 
the controversy with the Marcionites and the Valentinians 
is raging, as we learn from another passage ;? the Bishop 
of Smyrna 1s welcomed as a brother, and to do him greater 
honour, the Bishop of Rome makes him celebrate the 
Eucharist in his stead; a fact that shows most plainly the 
intercommunion of the Churches. However, the Bishop of 
Smyrna and the Bishop of Rome are anxious to settle a few 
points ou which they disagree; for solidarity is not merely 
mutual kindiness or the common breaking of the same 
eucharistic bread, it demands also community of faith and 
practice. Anicetus and Polycarp come to an understanding 
on certain contested points; distant as Smyrna is from 
Rome, the two Bishops wish that there should be between 
the two Churches a community of decisions. On the more 
important question of the date of Kaster, they cannot agree, 
but let us note their respective motives; Polycarp appeals to 
the authority of the Apostles, and especially to that of St. 
John; Anicetus appeals to the tradition of the presbyters 
who have preceded him. In this instance Polycarp shows 


1TREN. ap. Euses. “Ἢ. E.” v. 24, 16. 
2Tren. ‘‘ Adv. haer.” 111. 3. 


170 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


himself to be such as he had already manifested himself 
some thirty or forty years before, in his Epistle to the 
Philippians; his criterion of truth has remained the same. 
As to Anicetus, he has no other criterion than that of 
Polycarp, or rather Anicetus accepts the criterion of Polycarp 
and completes it by taking into account the continuity of 
the tradition of presbyters more ancient than himself—and 
this is to invoke the principle of Apostolic succession. Nor 
can it be said that this way of arguing was devised for the 
sake of the cause they had to defend against Gnosticism, 
since in the case before us, two bishops appeal to it, as to 
the only justification they can give each other of the special 
tradition of their respective Churches. 

We cannot leave Smyrna without mentioning the Epistle 
of “1886 Church of God that sojourneth at Smyrna to the 
Church of God that sojourneth at Philomelium”’ in Phrygia, 
—which contains the narrative of the martyrdom of St. Poly- 
carp. The copy addressed to the Christians of Philomelium 
is conveyed to them by a Christian named Marcion: they are 
asked to transmit the Epistle to the more distant brethren. 
Hence the Epistle will pass round from one Church to the 
other, and gradually the copies will increase in number and 
reach the farthest Churches. This is why we read in the 
inscription of the letter that it 15 addressed ‘‘to all the 
[Churches] of the holy and catholic Church, sojourning in 
every place”’.1 This circulation of an Epistle coming from 
Smyrna proves that the “‘interecclesiastical confederacy” is 
a concrete reality. 

This reality is designated by the word καθολική. St. 
Ignatius had first appled the term καθολική to the Church 
and given to it its concrete and geographical meaning. The 
compiler of the Epistle from the Smyrnians now writes, not 
in the inscription of the letter, but in the narrative itself: 
‘‘When at length he brought his prayer to an end, after 
remembering all who at any time had lived near him, 
small and great, high and low, and all the (catholic) Church 


1 ἐς Martyrium Polycarpi,” inscr. (Funk, ‘‘ Patr. apost.” 1.314) : racais 
ταῖς κατὰ πάντα τόπον τῆς ἁγίας καὶ καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας παροικίαις. We 
must bear in mind that the expression ‘‘ Catholic Church,” was used first 
by Ignatius writing to the Smyrnians. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. TREN ΔΚ 1:7} 


[spread] throughout the world... .”’! The τυ θυ 5 aim is 
to show the worldwide embrace of the charity of the 
martyred Bishop: the Church for which he prays is not his 
Church of Smyrna, but the Church Catholic, inasmuch as it 
comprises the Churches scattered all over the world. 

Funk maintains that the compiler of the Epistle of the 
Smyrnians knew also the secondary meaning of the term 
καθολική: “Τὰ the number of these elect was the glorious 
martyr Polycarp, who was an apostolic and prophetic teacher 
in our own times, a bishop of the Catholic Church which is 
in Smyrna.”? In this passage, καθολική is, Funk thinks, a 
term signifying orthodoxy, and for the first time in the texts 
of ancient Christian literature that have come down to us, 
the word has this meaning.’ 


Kel ke 
Ἃ 


According to the testimony of St. Irenzeus, Papias was 
the familiar friend of St. Polycarp at Smyrna. Husebius 
says he was Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. Eusebius, 
who had his treatise in five books, entitled ‘‘ Expositions of 
the Logia of the Lord,” has preserved for us its title and a 
few too short quotations: the treatise, a refutation of Gnosti- 
cism, is referred by Funk to about the year 130. 

The title itself reveals the author’s method: having to 


1 Martyr.” vir. 1: καὶ πάσης τῆς κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην καθολικῆς 
ἐκκλησίας. Also, x1x. 2: [Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν] ποιμένα τῆς κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην 
καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας. 

5 Martyr.” xvi. 2: διδάσκαλος ἀποστολικὸς καὶ προφητικὸς γενόμενος, 
ἐπίσκοπος τῆς ἐν Σμύρνῃ καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας. On the strength of one 
Greek MS. and of the old Latin version, Lightfoot reads ἁγίας instead of 
καθολικῆς. We leave aside Harnack, who thinks that the word καθολική in 
the ‘‘ Martyrium ” is everywhere an interpolation. Kattenbusch is unde- 
cided. Zahn shares Funk’s opinion and sees in the expression a touch of 
irony against the “‘ecclesiole hereticorum”. Besides, Lightfoot owns 
that the presence of the word καθολική as a qualification of orthodoxy, 
would not at all tell against the authenticity of the document, for at the 
time of Polycarp’s martyrdom, there were heretical communities, for in- 
stance, those of the Basilidians, Valentinians, Marcionites, ete. ; and 
Christians had to use an epithet as a sign of distinction. When it be- 
comes opportune, each formula appears somewhere. 

83 ΠῚ 6. Passion of St. Pionius, of Smyrna, cannot be brought forward 
here, for St. Pionius was martyred, not in the time of Marcus Aurelius, 
but in the year 250. 


172 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


refute Gnosticism, he takes for his basis the logia or sayings 
of the Lord. In this term we must not see an allusion to 
the sources of the Synoptics, for these sources had long since 
dried up; in the Churches, the fundamental authority is the 
word of the Lord, and their endeavour is to understand it 
aright, unlike the Gnostics who disfigure it, either by explain- 
ing it in their own way, or by substituting for it apocryphal 
sayings: their teaching is a novelty to which genuine Chris- 
tians will oppose the teaching of the ancients, who have 
known the Apostles and received from them the authentic 
truth, that which was taught by Christ. 

‘“‘T shall not hesitate, in order to guarantee the truth of 
my own interpretations, to add to them whatsoever things I 
have at any time learned carefully from the presbyters and 
carefully remembered. For I did not, like the multitude, 
take pleasure in those that speak much, but in those that 
teach the truth; not in those that relate strange command- 
ments (ἀλλοτρίας ἐντολάς), but in those that deliver the 
commandments given by the Lord to the faith, which springs 
from the Truth itself. If, then, any one came, who had 
been a follower of the elders, I asked them what the elders 
had said—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what Philip, 
or Thomas said, or James, or John, or Matthew, or any other 
of the disciples of the Lord, and what Aristion and the 
presbyter John say. ... 1 did not think that what was 
to be gotten from books would profit me as much as what 
came from a living voice.” ὦ 

To the ‘‘babblers” Papias opposes the ancients who 
teach what is true; he opposes to strange precepts those 
which are authentic, those given to the faith by the Lord 
Himself, and here the faith means the collective and traditional 
faith. To verify with greater security these authentic pre- 


1Pap. ap. Eusss. ‘‘H.E.” m1. 39, 3-4, See a commentary on this 
fragment in Funk, ‘‘ Patr. apostol.” vol. 1. p. 352. With Funk I believe 
that the word πρεσβύτεροι designates here the Apostles and disciples, such 
as Aristion and the other John. As regards the ἀλλοτρίαι ἐντολαί, com- 
pare the words of a presbyter quoted by St. Irenzeus (m1. 17, 4): ““... 
sicut quidam dixit superior nobis de omnibus qui quolibet modo depra- 
vant quae sunt Dei et adulterant veritatem: In Dei lacte gypsum male 
miscetur.” The ‘‘ Muratorianum ” says later on in the same sense: ‘‘ Fel 
cum melle misceri non congruit ”. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤᾺΝ EUS 173 


cepts, Christians must inquire about what was said by the 
Apostles, Andrew or Peter, Philip or Thomas, James or 
John, and by the disciples of the Apostles, such as Aristion 
and John the presbyter. What is contained in books, for in- 
stance in the books of Gnostics, does not at all compare with 
what has been said by the living voice of those primitive wit- 
nesses. Thus, Kusebius concludes, ‘‘ Papias confesses that 
he received the words of the Apostles from those that followed 
them”. Again, Papias declares he has personally heard 
Aristion and John the presbyter. ‘‘ He mentions them fre- 
quently by name, and gives their traditions (παραδόσεις) in 
his writings”.' The method followed by Papias is that 
which opposes tradition to gnosis, and justifies tradition by 
deriving it from the Apostles and from the Lord. 

Unlike Polycarp and Papias, Hegesippus is not a bishop : 
Eusebius classes him with Justin as he is entitled to do 
by the fact that both Hegesippus and Justin were born in 
Palestine, and that Hegesippus, who was Justin’s contempor- 
ary, sojourned in Rome at the time Justin taught there. 
Papias had gone to Jerusalem to inquire into the most au- 
thentic canon of the Old Testament: a like desire of investi- 
gation led Hegesippus from one Church to the other, and, 
according to the testimony of Eusebius,? he relates in the 
fifth book of his treatise, how he consulted many bishops 
until he reached Rome, and how he gathered from all of them 
the same teaching. 

Acting thus, Hegesippus was doing what was required 
for the purpose of his treatise, which, as we know from 
Eusebius, was to find out “the true tradition of Apostolic 
doctrine ’’.® 

Thus, Hegesippus arrives at Corinth, when Primus is 


1 KuseEs. ibid. 7. Cf. 14. In the Κήρυγμα Πέτρου, which dates from 
the age of Papias, the Apostle Peter is made to say: ‘‘ Having learned 
holily and religiously what we entrust to you, you will observe it and offer 
up to God through Christ the new worship”: ὥστε καὶ ὑμεῖς ὁσίως καὶ δικαίως 
μανθάνοντες ἃ παραδίδομεν ὑμῖν, φυλάσσεσθε καινῶς τὸν θεὸν διὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ 
σεβόμενοι (ed. ἸθοΒΒοη 2, p. 21). 

2 Kuses. ‘‘ H. EK.” 1v. 22,1: δηλοῖ ὡς πλείστοις ἐπισκόποις συμμίξειν 
ἀποδημίαν στειλάμενος pexpt Ῥώμης, καὶ ὡς ὅτι THY αὐτὴν παρὰ πάντων 
παρείληφεν διδασκαλίαν. 

3 Kuses. 1Υ. 8, 2: τὴν ἀπλανῆ παράδοσιν τοῦ ἀποστολικοῦ κηρύγματος. 


174 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


bishop of this city: during a somewhat prolonged stay he 
converses with the Bishop; he ascertains that the Church of 
Corinth is faithful to the sound doctrine; with the 
Corinthians he rejoices over the purity of their faith.! 
Hegesippus next passes from Corinth to Rome; there also 
he inquires about the faith, and in a few words he tells us 
his method: he does not content himself with ascertain- 
ing that the faith is pure, he takes pains to ascertain also 
that it comes down from the Apostles through a continuous 
and well-authenticated succession. This is why he said of 
the Corinthian Church that it ‘‘ continued in the true faith 
until Primus,’ which does not mean that since Primus it 
had departed from the true faith, but, as we may conjecture, 
that he himself had been able to follow the succession from 
Primus back to Paul the Apostle. At Rome, Hegesippus 
writes, I verified the ‘‘succession down to Anicetus,” 1.6. by 
ascending from Anicetus to the Apostles; and, he adds, ‘‘in 
every succession, and in every city that is held which is 
preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord’’? 

We find then here a twofold criterion of the sound faith 
affirmed: that the faith is the same in all the Churches, and 
that it comes from the Apostles. 

The Churches do not come together or deliberate to lay 
down a profession of faith that may be henceforth common 
to all; but men acting in their own name, travelling from 
one Church to the other, witness that, as a matter of fact, 
the faith is everywhere the same and that it is traceable 
back to the Apostles themselves, through a succession which 
can be everywhere ascertained. Hegesippus is no theorist 
as to the nature of catholicity and of apostolicity; he is a 
witness thereof, because catholicity and apostolicity were 
contained in the facts, before becoming arguments. 

Hegesippus speaks of the Church of Jerusalem, where 
he applies himself to find out the διαδοχή: James the Just 


' HEGESIPP. ap. HusEB. Iv. 22, 2: ἐπέμενεν ἡ ἐκκλησία ἡ Κορινθίων ἐν 
τῷ ὀρθῷ λόγῳ . . . and a few lines further : συνανεπάημεν ἐν τῷ ὀρθῷ Aoyo. 

*Thid. 3: ἐν Ῥώμῃ διαδοχὴν ἐποιησάμην μέχρις ᾿Ανικήτου.. .. ἐν ἑκάστῃ 
δὲ διαδοχῇ καὶ ἐν ἑκάστῃ πόλει οὕτως ἔχει ὡς ὁ νόμος κηρύσσει καὶ οἱ προφῆται 
καὶ ὁ κύριος. For the justification of the expression διαδοχὴν ἐποιησάμην 
see Licutroor, ‘‘ Clement,” vol. 1. pp. 325-33. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤΒῈΝ 5 175 


is the first link, and after him Simeon, son of Clopas, is 
made bishop. But chafing at not having obtained the 
episcopal dignity, Thebutis begins to corrupt the people: 
a work of corruption that was derived from the seven Jewish 
sects! out of which arose the Christian sects, named the 
Simonians, the Cleobians, the Dositheans, the Menandrians 
and Marcianists and Carpocratians, Valentinians, Basilidians 
and Saturnilians which ‘introduced each privately and separ- 
ately its own peculiar opinion. These were the false Christs, 
false Prophets, false Apostles, who divided the unity of the 
Church by corrupt doctrines against God and against His 
Christ.”? This genealogy of the Gnosticism of the great 
Gnostics, Valentinus and Basilides, is very ingenious: it is 
clear that Hegesippus intends to compromise them by thus 
ascribing to them undesirable ancestors. This disreputable 
genealogy is to contrast with the sound διαδοχή, that which 
has for its ancestor the first authentic bishop, successor of 
the Apostles. 

Another contrast : James was faithful to Christ’s teaching 
so also, we may infer, was Simeon; ‘‘then they called the 
Church a virgin, for it was not yet corrupted by vain doc- 
trine’’? but as soon as men like Thebutis break with the 
διαδοχή there follows the corruption of the truth; each goes 
his own way and thinks as he pleases: Christ, the Prophets, 
the Apostles, the three foundations of the faith, are hence- 
forth shaken ; the unity of the Church no longer exists. 

* * 
* 

A similar testimony is given by Abercius in the well- 
known inscription which he composed for his tomb and of 
which, by rare good fortune, we still possess both the text 
and the marble slab itself.* This text served as model for 


1 Hegesippus gives their names: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, 
Masbotheans, Samaritans, Sadducees and Pharisees. 

5 Tbid. 5-6: ἕκαστος ἰδίως καὶ ἑτεροίως ἰδίαν δόξαν παρεισηγάγοσαν. 
᾿Απὸ τούτων ψευδόχριστοι, ψευδοπροφῆται, ψευδαπόστολοι, οἵτινες ἐμέρισαν τὴν 


ἕνωσιν τῆς ἐκκλησίας. We may notice the expression, ‘‘ The unity of the 
Church ”’. 

3 7014. 4: ἐκάλουν τὴν ἐκκλησίαν παρθένον, οὔπω yap ἔφθαρτο ἀκοαῖς 
ματαίαις. 


‘See our article ‘‘ Abercius”’ in the ‘‘ Dictionnaire de Théologie ”. 


176 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


a Christian inscription, found at Keleudre in Phrygia, of 
which the original has hkewise come down to us and is 
assigned to the year 216; from which scholars infer that 
the inscription of Abercius, composed at Hieropolis, in 
Phrygia, dates at the latest from the first years of the third 
century. The Bishop of Hieropolis, Abercius, was seventy- 
two years old when he had his inscription engraved ; hence 
he must have been born about the year 130. He is a con- 
temporary of Hegesippus, Melito, and Papias. ‘‘ Zam,” 
says Abercius, ‘‘the disciple of a holy shepherd who feeds his 
sheep upon the hills and plains, and who has great eyes 
which see all.”” We may recall the Epistle of the Smyrnians, 
about the year 155, in which Jesus is called “‘ the shepherd 
of the Catholic Church [spread] throughout the world”; 
and the «Shepherd”’ of Hermas, which speaks of the large 
tree that covers with its shade the whole earth, “‘ plains and 
hills ’’4 

Abercius continues: ‘‘ He taught me the faithful letters” 
(γράμματα πιστά). Josephus often calls the Jewish Bible 
ἱερὰ γράμματα, and the same expression is frequently applied 
in the Pastoral Epistles to Holy Writ in general.? As to 
the word πιστός, it is distinctly Christian. 

‘* He vt vs,” the inscription continues, he the pure shep- 
herd, “‘ who sent me to Rome to see the sovereign queen, 
clad in a golden robe, and with golden shoes.” Abercius, 
then, made the journey to Rome like Polycarp and Hege- 
sippus, prompted as they were by the thought of his faith. 
For him Rome is the queen city: St. Justin had already 
spoken of the honours paid to Simon the Samaritan ἐν τῇ 
πόλει ὑμῶν βασιλίδι ‘Poeun. Rome’s sovereignty shines 


Cf. ‘‘Oracula Sibyll.” fragm. (éd. Geffcken, p. 228): παντοκράτωρ 
ἀόρατος ὁρώμενος αὐτὸς ἅπαντα. ‘‘ Martyr. Polycarp.” xix. 2. Herm. 
SOS imi? viens, 2 

22Tim. mt. 15: ἀπὸ βρέφους ἱερὰ γράμματα οἶδας. The Imperial 
letters also were called ἱερὰ γράμματα. DEISSMANN, p. 274. 

3 Justin, “1. Apolog.” xxvi. 2. The expression ἐν τῇ βασιλίδι Ῥώμῃ 
was commonly used. JI notice it three times in the well-known inscription 
of Pozzuoli, which dates from the year 174 .4.p. : Booxn, ‘‘ C. I. G.” n. 5853. 
Compare the text of the ‘‘ Acta Pauli” (an Asia Minor text of about the 
year 180), on the Christian community of Rome, which outdoes in number 
all other communities and has no equal. Harwnacx, ‘ Analecta zur 
altesten Geschichte des Christentums in Rom.” (Leipzig, 1905), p. 6. 


fond 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. TREN AUS 177 


forth in her sumptuous dress: a golden robe and golden 
shoes.! 

“There I saw a people who had a gleaming seal.” 
This people isthe Christian people. The word σφραγίς, which 
we translate “seal” signifies literally the signet-ring that 
authenticates a signature, ἃ letter.2 By extension, it desig- 
nates the mark put on goods or on beasts, by which they 
may be recognized.* During the second century, the Gnostic 
Theodotus writes in a fragment that has been preserved : 
‘“‘Trrational animals testify by the sphragis of their owner to 
whom they respectively belong, and it is by the testimony of 
the sphragis that the owner claims them”.* Figuratively 
taken, the sphragis is the baptism every Christian receives 
as an imprint by means of which the Divine Shepherd re- 
cognizes His sheep. 

This baptized people Abercius has met with wherever he 
has gone, and he has observed everywhere that these same 
baptized men and women have in common with him the same 
faith and the same worship. ‘‘ There 7 saw a people who 
had a gleaming seal.2 I also saw the plains of Syria and 
all the cities and Nisibis, beyond the Euphrates. Everywhere 
I found fellow-believers. Ihad Paul for . . . (here one word 
has been lost). Hverywhere was faith my guide, and every- 
where it gave me for food a fish from the spring, the great, the 


1OricEn, ‘Selecta in psalm. xiv.” 10: καὶ viv μὲν ἡ ἐκκλησία τοῦ 
θεοῦ διάχρυσα ἔχει ἱμάτια. It is disputed whether the queen spoken of by 
Abercius is Rome or the Roman Church. De Rossi, Duchesne, and Light- 
foot think that the Roman Church is meant. De Rosst, ‘‘ Inscriptiones,”’ 
vol. II. p. XIX. 

2As regards the σφραγίς thus understood, see the curious text of 
CLEMENT, ‘‘ Paedagog.” m1. 11 (‘‘ P. G.” vol. vit. col. 633 A.). 

* A commercial papyrus from Fayoum, of the end of the second cen- 
tury A.D., speaks of σφραγῖδα ἐπιβάλλειν ἑκάστῳ ὄνῳ, to mark all asses with 
a mark of property, that they may be recognized. A. Derssmann, ‘‘ Neue 
Bibelstudien ” (Marburg, 1897), p. 66. 

4‘¢ Excerpta Theodot.” 86 (‘‘ P. G.” vol. rx. p. 698). Cf. ORIGEN, 
‘*Comment. in Ioan.” 1.2. Compare what is said by Celsus in ORIGEN, 
‘Contra Celsum,” νι. 27, περὶ τῆς καλουμένης παρὰ τοῖς ἐκκλησιαστικοῖς 
σφραγῖδος. 

ὕὅΤη the ‘‘ Acta Philippi,” 144 (ed. Bonner, p. 86), the Apostle thus 
addresses Christ in a prayer: "Evdvo0dv pe τὴν φωτεινὴν cov σφραγῖδα τὴν 
πάντοτε λάμπουσαν. 


12 


178 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


pure, which a spotless virgin caught ; she ever puts it before 
her friends to eat: she has also delicious wine, and she offers 
wine mixed with water together with bread... . Let every 
one who understands this pray for Abercius.”’} 

The faith of Abercius makes him welcome everywhere, 
for everywhere his faith is professed; and that faith gives 
him the right to be everywhere admitted to communion; faith 
and worship cannot be disjoined. We may recall Polycarp 
admitted to communion at Rome, like all the faithful of the 
Quartodeciman Churches who visit Rome. The fish is Jesus 
Christ, according to the well-known symbolism of the ich- 
thus. As to the spotless virgin who has caught the Divine 
fish, Catholics agree in seeing in her the Virgin Mary, instead 
of the Church.? The union of all Christians throughout the 
whole world is the result of faith and of worship, which bind 
them one to another and make them all friends, initiated, and 
guests at a common meal. After their death, the prayers 
of those who remain accompany them beyond the grave. 

τοῦ τς 
% 

We have not as yet taken Egypt into our inquiry, and 
except for the Epistle of Barnabas this country is altogether 
silent. The first author whose voice is heard in the second 
half of the second century is Panteenus, of whom Clement 
of Alexandria was the disciple : thismakes him a contemporary 
of Justin and Hegesippus. He is in fact represented as an 
ancient who knew those who had seen the Apostles. 


1 Ταῦτ᾽ ὁ νοῶν εὔξαιτ᾽ ὑπὲρ ᾿Αβερκίου πᾶς ὁ cvv@dds. The word cvv@dds 
is to be translated ‘‘ concentor” or ‘‘he who sings with me ” : we might see 
here an allusion to the Christian worship ; at least it is easy to recognize 
the prayer for the dead. 

* Compare Aristip. ‘‘ Apolog.”’ 15 (ed. Rosryson, p. 110) : of χριστιανοὶ 
γενεαλογοῦνται ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, οὗτος... ἐκ παρθένου ἁγίας 
γεννηθείς κιτ.λ. 

ΞῬΑΜΡΗΠ, ap. Por. ‘‘ Cod.” 118: Πάνταινον τῶν τε τοὺς ἀποστόλους 
ἑωρακότων ἀκροάσασθαι, οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καί τινων αὐτῶν ἐκείνων διακοῦσαι. We 
do not know what Apostles Panteenus may have met. However—and 
this confirms the attribution to Pantnus of the epilogue of the Epistle to 
Diognetus—we shall hear presently the author of that epilogue state that 
he is “‘a disciple of the Apostles”. We may observe, however, that Cle- 
ment of Alexandria gives the name Apostles to disciples of the Apostles : 
thus he calls Clement of Rome an Apostle. ‘‘Stromat.” 1v. 17 (‘P. G.” 
vol. vii. col. 1312). 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤΒῈΝ ΖΚ 179 


Clement set a very high value on having been a disciple 
of Pantenus and also of some others—ancients like the 
latter: one of whom he had met in Achaia, another in 
Southern Italy, a third in Ceele-Syria, a fourth in Palestine ; 
but to Clement, Pantzenus was the dearest of all. “1 found 
him concealed in Egypt,” he says, ‘‘and having found him 
I sought for no other. ‘This veritable Sicilian bee ran over 
the meadows and gathered from the flowers of Prophets and 
Apostles wherewith to form in the souls of his hearers, as in 
a sacred hive, pure combs not of honey but of knowledge 
and light.” This brief indication betokens already the 
method Clement rejoiced to find used by those masters of 
old, but he insists: these ancients, he says, ‘‘ preserved the 
true tradition of the blessed doctrine,’ that of the Saviour, 
and they .“‘ derived it directly from the holy Apostles Peter, 
James, John and Paul’’.} 

Has any writing of Pantenus come down to us? 

Anastasius Sinaita mentions four authors “old and prior 
to the Councils,’ who, he says, applied to Christ and to the 
Church the whole Hexaemeron. These four authors were 
Ammonius, Clement of Alexandria, Pantzenus of Alexandria, 
and, the oldest of the four, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis. In 
another passage, Anastasius relates that these interpreters 
‘applied to the Church what is said of the paradise”’ in 
Genesis.” 

Now the text of the Epistle to Diognetus ends with a 
fragment, which, according to all critics, does not make one 
whole with the Epistle, and is entirely foreign to it, both in 
substance and in style: Lightfoot has suggested it might be 
the work of Pantenus: * a tempting conjecture, on condition 
that one looks upon it as a mere conjecture. Those two 


1Cuem. ‘‘Strom.” 1. 1 (‘‘P. G.” vol. vit. col. 700): τὴν ἀληθῆ τῆς 
μακαρίας σώζοντες διδασκαλίας παράδοσιν, εὐθὺς ἀπὸ Πέτρου re καὶ Ἰακώβου, 
Ἰωάννου τε καὶ Παύλου τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων. 

3 ΑΝΑΒΤΑΒ, in “Ῥ, G.” vol. Lxxxix. pp. 860, 902. Funx,‘‘ Patres 
Apost.” 1. 904, As regards Ammonius of Thmuis (third century), Har- 
nack, ‘‘ Chronol.” vol. τι. p. 81. 

* Ligutroor, ‘‘ Apostolic Fathers, Ep. to Diogn.” (1891), p. 488. In 
the ‘‘Theolog. Quartalschrift,” vol. txxxvuz. (1906), p. 28-36, pr PauLt 
(after Bunsen, Driiseke, Bonwetsch) ascribes—wrongly, I think—the 
fragment to Hippolytus. Cf. ΤΙΛΉΝΆΟΙ, op. cit. p. 232. 

12 


180 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


pages are written in a most affected, and even rhythmic 
style; and what Clement has just said of Pantenus and his 
admiration for him, leads one to think that the latter’s style 
had not the rude simplicity of that of Papias. From 
quotations made by St. Ireneus, we have some verses of 
presbyters of the second century, which show that those 
early writers did not shrink from making use of prosodical 
forms. 

(Τ do not speak of strange things, nor do I aim at any- 
thing inconsistent with right reason; but having been a 
disciple of the Apostles, I am become a teacher of the 
Gentiles.”” The unknown author addresses converts from 
paganism, and represents himself as a disciple of the 
Apostles, probably in contrast with the Gnostics, whose 
teachings are foreign and absurd. He is a διδάσκαλος, a 
word that recalls the Alexandrian διδασκαλεῖον, of which 
Pantzenus was the first master, according to EKusebius.1 Our 
author continues: “1 give faithfully what I have received 
(τὰ παραδοθέντα) to those that become disciples of the truth ; 
for who that is rightly taught (ὀρθῶς διδαχθεῖς), and is be- 
coming a friend to the Word, would not seek to know accur- 
ately the things which the Word taught directly to His 
Disciples?’ Christian wisdom, then, consists in knowing 
that which has been taught by Christ Himself to His disciples, 
and has been faithfully transmitted from hand to hand by 
tradition. ‘‘The Father sent the Word, that He might 
manifest Himself to the world; and the Word, being despised 
by the (Jewish) people, was preached (κηρυχθείς) by the 
Apostles, and believed by the Gentiles. Through Him the 
Church is rich.”” The Gentile world has received from the 
Apostles the message destined for it; the Son is thus be- 
gotten in the hearts of the Saints, and the Church holds 
Him asa treasure. ‘The fear of the Law is chanted, the 
grace of the Prophets is known, the faith of the Gospels is 
established, the tradition of the Apostles is preserved, and 
the grace of the Church exults.”* Christ immanent in the 


1 Houses. “Η. EH.” v. 10, 4. 

2‘¢ Bp. ad Diogn.” x1. 6: εἶτα φόβος νόμου ἄδεται καὶ προφητῶν χάρις 
γινώσκεται, καὶ εὐαγγελίων πίστις ἵδρυται, καὶ ἀποστόλων παράδοσις φυλάσ- 
σεται, καὶ ἐκκλησίας χάρις σκιρτᾷ. With the word ᾷδεται compare the word 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤᾺῈΝ ΠΣ 181 


Church is manifested therein through the Law, the Prophets, 
the Gospels, the Apostles, the Apostolic tradition. 

The Gentiles who became converts have a share in this 
treasure. ‘‘ You are made a paradise of delight, cause to 
spring up in yourselves a tree bearing all kinds of fruits. . . . 
For in this place the tree of knowledge and the tree of life 
have been planted ; but it is not the tree of knowledge that 
destroys—it is disobedience that destroys. For what is 
written is not obscure, how God from the beginning planted 
the tree of knowledge and the tree of life in the midst of 
paradise, revealing through knowledge the way to life. . . .” 
The Gentiles are ushered into paradise and led to the two 
trees God has planted there; or still better those two trees 
are planted in them and bear fruits, ‘‘ which the serpent 
cannot reach’”’. Then follows a rather obscure statement, 
which refers perhaps to the Church: ‘ Eve is not corrupted, 
but she is called a virgin”! Christ is the new Adam, and 
the Church, his helpmate, is Eve, who remains for ever a 
virgin. 

He whom Clement of Alexandria likened to a Sicilian 
bee may have expressed his thoughts in this poetic style, so 
full of Johannine and Pauline reminiscences; and, if these 
two pages are the work of Pantznus, we have in their re- 
semblance to Clement’s own writings a concrete piece of 
evidence of the mental affinity between master and disciple, 
and an explanation of Clement’s admiration. In this passage, 
moreover, we should then find a confirmation of the state- 
ment of Anastasius Sinaita, that Pantenus applies to the 
Church what is said, in Genesis, of the earthly paradise. 


* * 
* 


The instruction in the form of a homily, which has been 
preserved under the name of ‘‘ Second Epistle of Clement to 
the Corinthians,” is neither an epistle, nor by Clement of 
Rome, but may be an instruction addressed to the Corinthians 


συνῳδός in the inscription of Abercius. We find always the same insist- 
ence on singing, in connexion with the Church. 

1 Td. x11. 8: οὐδὲ Eva φθείρεται, ἀλλὰ παρθένος πιστεύεται. Recall 
what Hegesippus says of the virginity of the Church. 


182 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


and composed at Corinth. With Funk, we may date it at 
about the year 150.3 

The author of the ‘‘ Secunda Clementis’’ is not a con- 
troversialist; definite indeed are the anti-gnostic features 
which some scholars have thought to find in his work. 
He describes the Christian community he addresses, as 
subject to the authority of the presbyters (xvu. ὃ and 5): 
a teaching and disciplinary authority. The written authority 
is that of the precepts of Jesus Christ (xvi1. 8 and 6): these 
must be kept “that all [the faithful] having the same 
mind may be gathered together unto life” (xvi. 3). Hlse- 
where the author speaks of God’s logia, which are for Chris- 
tians the rule of conduct (x11. 3). One becomes a Christian 
through Baptism—an imprint that must be kept spotless ; 
for any one who does not preserve it, there is in store, a fire 
that shall never cease:? the community of the faithful is, 
thus, a community of the clean: a rigorist and encratistic 
inspiration animates the ‘“‘ Secunda Clementis’”’ and connects 
it with the great ethical current of second century Christi- 
anity. ‘‘In doing the will of the Father, in keeping the 
flesh pure, and observing the commandments of the Lord, 
we shall receive life eternal (vi. 4). If we do the will 
of God our Father, we shall be of the Church, which is 
first, which is spiritual, which was created before the sun and 
the moon.” ὃ 

This thought has no affinity with the exegesis which 
applied to the Church what is said of the paradise in Genesis ; 
it belongs to an order of speculation which we shall find 


1 This date and origin are conjectural. Against Harnack, who deems 
it a Roman production and even the work of Pope Soter (about 170), 
Bartlet inclines towards an Alexandrian origin, of about the year 140. 
‘* Zeitschrift fiir die neut. Wissenschaft,” 1906, p. 123 and foll. Har- 
NACE, ‘‘Chronol.” vol. 1. p. 448. Funk, ‘‘Patr. Apostol.” vol. 1. p. 111. 
2662 Clem.” vi. 9: ἐὰν μὴ τηρήσωμεν τὸ βάπτισμα ἁγνὸν Kal ἀμίαντον. 
- VIL 6: τῶν μὴ τηρησάντων τὴν σφραγῖδα. .. VIII. 6: τηρήσατε τὴν 
σάρκα ἁγνὴν καὶ τὴν σφραγῖδα ἄσπιλον. 
ὄχιν. 1: ἐσόμεθα ἐκ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς πρώτης, τῆς πνευματικῆς, τῆς πρὸ 
ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης ἐκτισμένης. FUNK, loc. cit. ; ‘‘ Auctor potius ante quam 
post medium saeculum (II) se vixisse indicare videtur, quoniam quae 
c. XIv. de ecclesia spirituali leguntur, postquam Gnostici errores suos per 
totum orbem disperserunt, haud facile dici poterant.” 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 183 


again in Hermas, and which, in some Gnostics, ends in 
making the Church an eon; it affirms the pre-existence of 
the Church as a dogma similar to that of Christ’s pre-exist- 
ence. The Jews likewise speculated about the heavenly 
Jerusalem, that which the author of the Apocalypse beholds 
“coming down out of Heaven from God, having the glory 
of God” (xx1. 10-11). The idea of the pre-existence of the 
Church is dependent on these speculations about the 
heavenly Jerusalem. 

The pneumatic Church, is the earliest in the sense that 
she has preceded the Jewish people: as is plainly stated 
elsewhere by the ‘‘ Secunda Clementis,”’ the opposition be- 
tween the two is the same as between Sara and Agar." 

‘Tet us choose rather to be of the Church of Life, that 
we may be saved. For I do not suppose you are ignorant 
that the living Church is the body of Christ; for the Scrip- 
ture saith, God made man, male and female. The male is 
Christ, and the female is the Church. And the books of 
the Prophets and the Apostles plainly declare that the 
Church is not of to-day, but hath been from the beginning: 
for she was spiritual, as our Jesus also was spiritual, but 
was manifested in these last days that she might save us. 
Now the Church, which is spiritual, was manifested in the 
flesh of Christ, thereby showing us that, if any of us guard 
her in the flesh and defile her not, he shall receive her again 
in the Holy Spirit: for this flesh is the antitype of the 
spirit. No man, therefore, when he hath defiled the antitype, 
shall receive the reality. Listen then, brethren; Guard 
ye the flesh, that you may partake of the spirit. But if 
we say that our flesh is the Church and the spirit of Christ, 
then he that hath soiled the flesh hath soiled the Church, 
and such an one, therefore, shall not partake of the spirit, 
which is Christ” (xtv. 1-5). 

These mystical considerations are subordinate to the 
encratism of our author: the law of Christians consists 
in keeping their bodies spotless, in order not to lose the 
imprint of baptism, and to be able to obtain life everlasting. 
Through baptism and through the preservation of the bap- 

1“ TT Clem.” 11.1: στεῖρα ἦν ἡ ἐκκλησία ἡμῶν mpd τοῦ δοθῆναι αὐτῇ 
τέκνα, κιτιλ. Of. Justin, “ Apolog,” 1. 53, 


184 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


tismal imprint, Christians belong to the Church of life 
(ἐκκλησία τῆς ζωῆς), the living Church (ἐκκλησία ζῶσα), the 
same which St. Paul (ΕΗ. 1. 22-3) calls the body of Christ, 
the same which is united to Christ, as the husband to the 
wife, as we read also in St. Paul (Eph. v. 31-2), the same 
that was created pneumatic at the beginning of all things, 
the same that became manifest in Christ’s flesh. 

In these lofty reflections on the supernatural life, the 
Church is no longer anything visible and social: she is the 
life, she is the Spirit, she is Christ in so far as Christ is 
Spirit. Still she is distinct from Christ, just as the wife is 
distinct from the husband. 


Let us leave this mysticism. Eusebius has had in his 
hands a collection of letters of Dionysius, who was bishop of 
Corinth when Soter was bishop of Rome (166-75), letters 
addressed to churches and called by Eusebius ‘‘ Catholic 
epistles’’.1 The expression “‘ catholic”? seems to be used here 
in the meaning it has when it designates the ‘‘ Catholic 
Epistles’ of the New Testament: it means that these Epistles 
are addressed to all the Churches, at the same time as to some 
particular Church. Eusebius mentions a letter to the Lace- 
demonians, which is a “catechism of the orthodox faith 
and a treatise on peace and unity”; one to the Athenians, 
on the remissness of their faith; one to the Christians of 
Nicomedia, in which he strenuously opposes the heresy of 
Marcion, and defends ‘‘the canon of the truth’; one to 
‘the Church that sojourns in Gortyna”’ and to the other 
communities of Crete, in which he forewarns them against 
any kind of intercourse with the heretics; one to ‘the 
Church that sojourns in Amastris, and to those in Pontus” ; 
and one to the Christians of Cnosos. In the same collec- 
tion was contained the answer of Pinytos, bishop of Cnosos, 
in which he begs Dionysius to write again to his Church, so 
grateful is it for the benefits derived from his first letter, 

We can see from this by what relations the Churches 
were bound together; also how the monarchical episcopate 
was vigorous in every church; how gladly the bishops 


1 Kuses. ‘‘ H. EH.” 1v. 29, 1: καθολικαῖς πρὸς τὰς ἐκκλησίας ἐπιστολαῖς. 
Cf. Ianar. ‘‘ Ad Polycarp.” vu. 1. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 185 


helped and counselled one another, always bent on arousing 
everywhere an attachment to unity, to the sound faith, to 
the canon of truth, and to the hatred of heresy. 

Eusebius knew also another Epistle of Dionysius, sent 
to the Romans or rather ‘‘ to Soter, who was their bishop at 
that time’. In it the Roman Church is warmly praised for 
her boundless charity, that extends to all the churches. 

‘From the beginning,” Dionysius writes to the Romans, 
(10 has been your practice to do good to all the brethren in 
various ways, and to send succours (ἐφόδια) to the Churches 
in all the cities [of the earth].! In thus relieving the want 
of the needy, and making provision for the brethren in the 
mines by the gifts which you have sent from the beginning, 
you Romans, keep up the hereditary custom of the Romans, 
which your blessed Bishop Soter has not only maintained, 
but has added to, by furnishing an abundance of supplies 
to the saints, and encouraging the brethren from abroad with 
blessed words, as a loving father does with his children.” ? 

The fame of the Roman charity dates ‘‘from the be- 
ginning,’ which refers to the time when St. Paul had 
already praised the Romans for their faith ‘‘spoken of in the 
whole world” (Rom. 1. 7) and had experienced himself the 
heartiness of their welcome (Acts xxv. 15). This charity 
has not grown cold in the course of time: it is known to all 
the brethren, and has extended to all the Churches both 
through material helps and the kind reception which the 
Christians of all the Churches are assured of finding at Rome. 

%* * 
* 
Like the unknown author of the ‘‘ Secunda Clementis,”’ 


1TIn Greek : ἐκκλησίαις πολλαῖς ταῖς κατὰ πᾶσαν πόλιν. The text may 
beamended. I follow the common reading. From the beginning there were 
in the Roman Church some of the faithful who belonged to the most aristo- 
cratic and wealthy families, and at times the amount of their wealth was 
very considerable. Regarding this peculiar feature of the Roman Church, 
see Harnack, ‘“‘ Mission,” vol. τι. pp. 26-38. 

2 Huses. tbid. 10. This letter of Dionysius was an answer to a letter 
of Soter. The former alludes to the letter (now lost) of Soter: ‘‘ To-day 
we have kept the Lord’s holy day, in which we have read your epistle : 

. we shall continue to read it always as an admonition (νουθετεῖσθαι), 
together with the former epistle, which was written to us through Clem- 
ent” (ibid. 11). An allusion to the ‘‘ Prima Clementis ”’. 


186 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hermas is not directly a controversial writer; but he knows 
that some hypocrites have done their best to spread among 
the faithful strange and foolish teachings, which he holds in 
abhorrence! These hypocrites must be driven away; there 
is no place for them in the symbolic building, the Church, 
which is being built; they are the stones that are cast 
aside. ‘‘In this way, will the Church of God be purified 

. after it has rejected the wicked, and the hypocrites, 
and the blasphemers. . . . After these have been cast out, 
the Church of God will be one body, one mind, one spirit, 
one love: and then the Son of God will be exceeding glad, 
and will rejoice among them [the clean], because He has 
received His people pure”. Unity of thought, of faith, of 
love, is, then, the law of the Church. But whether that 
Church is the concrete Church here below or the unseen 
Church in Heaven, Hermas does not state. 

He sees in a vision twelve mountains, the figure of men 
‘‘who inhabit the whole world, and to whom the Son of 
God was preached by the Apostles”. All the nations “" that 
dwell under heaven,” have, then, heard the message. The 
men ‘‘ who have received the sphragis have one thought, 
one mind, one faith, one love’’.» These are of course the 
faithful who are still here below, subject to be tempted to 
sin and error. Hermas pays more attention to sin than to 
error: the Lord says to him: ‘Keep thy flesh pure and 
stainless, that the Spirit which inhabits it may bear witness 
to it, and it may be justified... . If you defile your 
flesh, you will also defile the Holy Spirit; if you defile the 
Spirit you will not live.’* This life begins for the Christian 
even in this world, and it continues ‘‘with the Saints of 
God” and His Angels in Heaven.’ The Church, the com- 
munion of the Saints, is, then, earthly and heavenly at the 
same time. 


1Herm. ‘Sim. vi. 6, 5: ὑποκριταὶ διδαχὰς ξένας ciopépovres.. . 
ταῖς διδαχαῖς ταῖς pwpais πείθοντες. 

2¢¢Sim. 1x.” 18, 3-4: ἀποβληθῆναι τοὺς πονηροὺς καὶ ὑποκριτὰς καὶ 
βλασφημούς... .---ἔσται ἡ ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ ἕν σῶμα, μία φρόνησις, εἷς νοῦς, 
μία πίστις, μία ἀγάπη. : 

3 ἐς Sim. 1x.” 17, 4: λαβόντες οὖν τὴν σφραγῖδα μίαν φρόνησιν ἔσχον καὶ 
ἕνα νοῦν, καὶ μία πίστις αὐτῶν ἐγένετο καὶ μία ἀγάπη. 

SAS BMY. Ὁ: Ae Vig. tn 18, 8.0 1° Sima ae Oye 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 187 


She is a creation in view of which God has created 
everything else. A most handsome youth appears to 
Hermas and addresses him in these words: ‘‘ Who do you 
think this aged woman is from whom you received the 
book? The Sibyl? No, it isthe Church.” ‘‘ Why then is 
she an aged woman?’’ Hermas asks. ‘‘ Because,” the 
youth answers, ‘“‘she was created first of all, and for her 
sake was the world made.” 2 

Although she is that spiritual creation, the Church never- 
theless is constituted in local and visible Churches, that are 
subject to rule. The aged woman, the image of the unseen 
Church, has given a book to Hermas that he may hand it 
over to the presbyters. Hermas has been commissioned to 
carry it to Clement—who in the mind of the author of the 
‘¢ Shepherd,” is Clement of Rome—and then, Clement must 
send the book ‘‘to foreign cities”. Hermas will read it 
publicly in the city of Rome where he dwells ‘‘ with the 
presbyters who preside over the church’’.4 

These reflections on the Church spiritual are superadded 
then to the fact of the existence of the local churches, and, 
though they are probably connected with the teaching of the 
Epistle to the Ephesians, they occur so rarely that we can 
hardly say that they had any influence on the ecclesiastical 
organization. 

We should have a far better expression of the thoughts 
of the Roman Church in the work of Justin, had this work 
been preserved entire, and especially had we still in our 
hands that ‘“‘Syntagma adversus omnes hereses,”’ which we 
know only from its title. St. Irenzus quotes Justin against 


ns Wiis) 2." + 2-6: ai) Nano im. Το CEOS Vise me] Θ᾽ δὶ 

9. Mgr. Ducuesne, ‘‘ Eglises Séparees,” p. 130, remarks that, besides 
the writings that were rightly or wrongly called after some Apostle, the 
‘*Prima Clementis” and the ‘‘ Shepherd,” two Roman compositions, were 
the only works that had a place, during the second century, in the canon 
of some Churches. 

4 Vis, 1.” 4: πέμψει οὖν Κλήμης εἰς τὰς ἔξω πόλεις, σὺ δὲ ἀναγνώσῃ εἰς 
ταύτην τὴν πόλιν μετὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων τῶν προισταμένων τῆς ἐκκλησίας (cf. 
‘* Vis. 1.” 5). Hermas alludes elsewhere (‘‘ Vis. 111. 9) with some slight 
tinge of criticism τοῖς προηγουμένοις τῆς ἐκκλησίας καὶ τοῖς πρωτοκαθεδρίταις. 
There are rivalries for the first place in the churches: ‘‘Sim.” vi. 7; 
“Vis. 11.” 4, τπ. 1. We must not forget that Hermas is a ‘‘ prophet”. 


188 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Marcion;! Tertullian quotes him, together with Ireneus 
and Miltiades, against Valentinus and the Valentinians: and 
he represents them all three as the contemporaries of those 
heresiarchs whom they fought in books written with vigour 
(nstructissimis voluminibus) : he declares that his greatest 
wish is to become their equal.? Scholars think that the 
authors of works against heresy, beginning with Ireneus and 
Tertullian, most probably knew and used many a time the 
‘“‘ Syntagma ᾿ of St. Justin, which must have been the earliest 
sample of this kind of literature. Most probably too, Justin’s 
criteria are the same with those which Irenzus will develop 
some twenty-five years later. As ground for these supposi- 
tions, we have the indications we can find in the two ‘“ Apo- 
logies”’ and in the ‘‘ Dialogue with the Jew Trypho”. 
Justin is an apologist, in the ‘“‘ Apologies ” as well as in 
the ‘‘ Dialogue”; there appears in him the dualism of the 
believer who affirms the articles of his faith, and the apologist 
who justifies them by means of reasons; for the truth of 
the articles of faith is such as can be perceived by reason.’ 
But when it is a question of establishing the foundations 
of the articles of his faith, Justin is in perfect accord with 
Polycarp, Papias, and Hegesippus—as Ireneus later on will 
be with him—in proclaiming as a principle that faith is a 
teaching received as an inheritance and faithfully trans- 
mitted: that it is a deposit. The plea of the presbyters 
of Smyrna opposing to the novelties of Noetus, the rule, “‘ We 
declare what we have learned,” is already found in Justin.‘ 
Among many others, there are two terms that he uses 
with noticeable frequency: the word διδαχή and the word 
παράδοσις, the latter being the sequel and the guarantee 
of the former.’ 
Now the διδαχή is the teaching of the Prophets, of 


1 Ady. shear?’ τν 0. 4: 26 Adv. Valentinian.” 5. 

8 Justin, ‘‘ Apolog. 1.” 23: τὸ ἀληθὲς λέγομεν. Cf. 43: ἀληθὲς ἀποφαι- 
νόμεθα . . . ws δείκνυσιν ὁ ἀληθὴς λόγος. Celsus will entitle his criticism 
of Christianity a True Discourse. 

* Apolog. 1.” 19 : ὡς ἐδιδάχθημεν λέγοντες... —14: ταῦτα δεδιδάγ- 
μεθα καὶ διδάσκομεν. ἩτρΡοΙττ. ‘‘ Contra haer. Noet.” 1 (‘‘P. G.” vol. x. 
p- 805): ταῦτα λέγομεν ἃ ἐμάθομεν. The condemnation of Noetus at 
Smyrna occurred about the year 180.- 

® “ Anolog. 1.” 39. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤᾺΝ 15 189 


Christ, and of the Apostles. ‘These teachings, which we 
have received from Christ and from the Prophets, His pre- 
decessors, are the only true teachings, as contrasted with the 
fables of the Greeks.” 1 ‘‘ The doctrine which we have re- 
ceived from the Apostles” has the same authority ;” for it 
is by the Apostles that Christ’s doctrine was preached to the 
Gentile world: ‘“‘From Jerusalem there went out into the 
world twelve men in number, and they simple persons, and 
unskilled in speaking ; but through the power of God they 
declared to every race of men that they were sent by Christ 
to teach all men the word of God ”’.* 

The conviction which we have noted in Abercius and in 
Hegesippus is again expressed here, the conviction that 
the διδαχή spread all over the world is everywhere identical 
with itself. On stepping from his baptismal bath, the newly 
baptized Christian is led ‘‘where those who are called 
brethren are assembled together”’ ; prayers are offered up to 
God by all those who are present, for the assembly present, 
for the newly baptized brother, for ‘‘ all others everywhere,” 
1.6. for the ‘‘brethren’”’ dispersed in the whole world and 
wherever they are, in order that to all Christians ‘“‘ who have 
learned the truth’? God may grant that they keep what is 
prescribed to them.t The liturgy which opens with this 
prayer ends with the eucharist of which no one is allowed 
to partake ‘‘ but he who believes in the truth of our doc- 
trines, and has been baptised; and who so lives, as Christ 
has directed ”’.° 

In opposition to the truth which we have received from 
Christ through the Apostles and which we preserve with 


1 Apolog. 1.” 29. Cf. 53: rods ἀπὸ παντὸς ἔθνους ἀνθρώπους διὰ τῆς 
παρὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ διδαχῆς πεισθέντας. 

2 Apolog. 1.” 61 : καὶ λόγον παρὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων ἐμάθομεν τοῦτον .--- 
66: ἐδιδάχθημεν, οἱ γὰρ ἀπόστολοι οὕτως παρέδωκαν.---ΟΥ̓ : τοῖς ἀποστόλοις 
ἐδίδαξε ταῦτα ἅπερ ὑμῖν ἀνεδώκαμεν. 

3. ἐς Anolog. 1.” 23: ὁπόσα λέγομεν μαθόντες παρὰ τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ τῶν 
προελθόντων αὐτοῦ προφητῶν. ““ Apolog.” τι. 2: τὴν απὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ διδαχήν. 
“*Dialog.” OxIx. 6: τῇ φωνῇ τοῦ θεοῦ τῇ διά τε τῶν ἀποστόλων τοῦ Χριστοῦ 
λαληθείση, πάλιν καὶ τῇ διὰ τῶν προφητῶν κηρυχθείσῃ. 


4. ἐς Anolog. 1.” 65: κοινὰς εὐχὰς ὑπὲρ... ἄλλων πανταχοῦ πάντων. .. 
ὅπως καταξιωθῶμεν τὰ ἀληθῆ μαθόντες... καὶ φύλακες τῶν ἐντεταλμένων 
εὑρεθῆναι. 


5“ Αροΐορ. 1.” 66: . .. ὡς ὁ Χριστὸς παρέδωκεν. 


190 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


fidelity, error has multiplied, stirred up by the devils, ever 
since the day they saw that Christ “‘was believed in by 
every nation”; the devils have thus raised up Simon and 
Menander, both from Samaria, both of them magicians. 
Simon accompanied by a harlot, named Helen, came under 
Claudius to Rome, where a statue was erected to him as to 
a god. Menander took up his abode at Antioch, where 
some of his disciples are still to be found. Marcion, a 
native of Pontus, is still teaching: with the help of the 
devils, he has made his followers deny God, the creator of 
the world, and believe in a superior God. ‘The heretics 
are called Christians, but for the same reason that all philo- 
sophers are called philosophers, in spite of the variety of the 
doctrines they profess... Heresy--so we may infer from 
this description—can be recognized by its inspiration, which 
comes from the demons: hence come those impieties, those 
blasphemies and scandals, by which it is accompanied; it 
is preached by men who are well known, who have nothing 
at all of the mission of the Apostles, who are magicians like 
Simon and Menander, or sophists like Marcion. ‘The 
heretics, disciples of these heresiarchs, bear the name of 
Christians: but,in contrast with the unity of faith of the 
genuine Christians, what characterizes the heretics is the 
diversity of their opinions; and in this they are lke philo- 
sophers who follow but their own sense. ‘‘ However,” Justin 
concludes, ‘‘I have composed a treatise against all the 
heretics that have existed, which, if you wish to peruse it, I 
will present to you.” 


1 Anolog. 1.” 26: πάντες of ἀπὸ τούτων ὁρμώμενοι χριστιανοὶ καλοῦν- 
ται, ὃν τρόπον καὶ οὐ κοίνων ὄντων δογμάτων τοῖς φιλοσόφοις τὸ ἐπικαλούμενον 
ὄνομα τῆς φιλοσοφίας κοινόν ἐστιν. The word dogma is still used here in 
its philosophical sense. 

2. ἐς Anolog. 1.” 26. The same argument, drawn from the disagreement 
of heretics among themselves, is made use of by Rhodon, a native of Asia, 
who had come to Rome like Justin, and there became Tatian’s disciple. 
Eusebius places Rhodon in the time of the Emperor Commodus (180-92). 
See the fragment in which Rhodon expresses his mind regarding these 
contradictions of the heretics, and particularly of Apelles and Marcion ; 
Euses. ‘‘H. E.” v. 13, 2-4. This argument used by apologists like 
Justin and Rhodon is the same that is used by apologists like Tatian 
against the pagan philosophers whose contradictions they denounce. M. 
Puech has shown that in this respect our apologists—whilst using them 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤΒῈΝ ΕΚ 191 


In his two Apologies, addressed, as was said before, to the 
public at large—to the Prince, the Senate, and pagan public 
opinion—Justin appeals only to arguments resting on equity, 
on reason, or on fact: there was no motive for recalling then 
that Christianity formed an association within the Roman 
Empire; even the word Church is not mentioned. The 
“Dialogue with Trypho the Jew,” which is posterior to the 
first Apology and destined for Christian or Jewish readers, is 
more explicit. 

When the prophet Malachy announces that everywhere, 
in the midst of all nations, a clean oblation is offered up to 
God, Justin shows to the Jew Trypho that in this passage 
Malachy foretold Gentile Christianity. For, he says, it is 
a fact that Judaism is not spread all over the world, from 
the rising of the sun down to its setting, and that there are 
still many peoples in whose midst no Jew has as yet taken 
up his abode, whilst ‘‘ there is not any one race of men, 
barbarian or Greek, nay, of those who live in chariots, or 
without houses, or shepherds in tents, among whom prayers 
and eucharists are not celebrated in the name of the cruci- 
fied Jesus”’.1 Again, dealing with the prophecy of Micheas, 
that a time would come when the law would go forth from 
Jerusalem, and the word of the Lord would subdue the far 
distant nations, put an end to wars, and change swords into 
ploughshares, and when every man would sit in peace under 
his own vine, Justin shows that this time has actually come 
since the Apostles have carried the Gospel from Jerusalem 
to the Gentiles in the whole world; and that nothing, not 
even bloody persecution, is able to dismay the Christians. 
‘The vine which is planted by Christ our God and Saviour 
is His people.” ? 

The catholicity of the Christian faith (the word 
καθολικός has not this meaning in St. Justin) is geographi- 
cal, concrete and conspicuous.? Though thus dispersed, 


for an opposite purpose—had undergone the influence of the pagan 
προτρεπτικοὶ λόγοι, for instance of that of Posidonius. Purcu, ‘‘ Re- 
cherches sur le discours aux Grecs de Tatian” (Paris, 1903), p. 41. On 
the contrary, the proof from tradition is distinctly ecclesiastical, 

1¢¢ Dialog.” cxvit. 5. 2 Ibid. ox. 4. 

3 Cf. ‘* Dialogue,” cx1x. 4. 


192 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Christianity possesses a unity which is just asreal. ‘‘ Those 
who believe in Christ are one soul, one synagogue, one 
church,” this is why—in the text of the Psalm Audi filia et 
vide, et inclina aurem tuam, et obliviscere populum tuum 
—the word of God addresses as ‘‘ His daughter, the Church 
that is born of and partakes of His name, for we are all 
called Christians.’! That Justin uses indiscriminately the 
words synagogue and church, need cause us no great surprise : 
for he is disputing with a Jew, and in speaking of the Chris- 
tian people which in God’s plan takes the place of the Jewish 
people, he intends to make use of general designations only: 
in the present discussion, ‘‘Church’”’ has no other meaning 
than that given to the word by the LXX. But, at bottom, 
Justin has in view the Church, that which stands over against 
the Synagogue, and elsewhere he clearly asserts this opposi- 
tion, saying that Jacob is the figure of Christ, mas- 
much as Jacob served Laban for his two daughters and was 
deceived as regards the former. Lia is the figure of ‘‘ your 
people and synagogue,” Justin says to Trypho, ‘‘and Rachel 
is our Church”’.? 

But here an objection can be raised: Among those who 
bear the name of Christians, are there not many heretics ? 
Justin realized probably far more than Trypho, the bitter- 
ness of this scandal: men bold enough to “affirm them- 
selves to be Christians and confess Jesus, who was crucified, 
to be both Lord and Christ,” and at the same time ‘“‘ teaching 
not His doctrine, but such as proceeds from the spirits of 
error”. Justin appeals to the ‘‘true and pure teaching 
of Jesus Christ’’; he recalls that the Saviour foretold what is 
taking place now: that false prophets will come in the 
clothing of sheep who inwardly are ravening wolves, pseudo- 
Christs, pseudo-apostles, seducers of the faithful. 

Here we find again the trilogy of the Prophets, of Christ 
and of the Apostles, as the foundation of the pure and authen- 


1“ Dialog.” Lxmt. 5: ὅτι τοῖς εἰς αὐτὸν πιστεύουσιν ὡς οὖσι μιᾷ ψυχῇ 
καὶ μιᾷ συναγωγῇ καὶ μιᾷ ἐκκλησίᾳ, ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ [εἴρηται] ὡς θυγατρὶ τῇ 
ἐκκλησίᾳ τῇ ἐξ αὐτοῦ ὀνόματος γενομένῃ καὶ μετασχούσῃ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ 
(χριστιανοὶ γὰρ πάντες καλούμεθα). ᾿ 

3 Ibid. σχχχιν. 2: Λεία μὲν ὁ λαὸς ὑμῶν καὶ ἡ συναγωγή, Ραχὴλ δὲ ἡ 
ἐκκλησία ἡμῶν. ᾿ 

3 Ibid. xxxv. 2. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤᾺΝ ΌΝ 193 


tic faith. Outside this foundation, there is nothing but 
blasphemy and error. ‘‘There both are and have been, 
many who have presented themselves in the name of Jesus, 
and taught men to speak and act atheistically and blasphem- 
ously, but they are known among us by the name of those 
by whom the doctrine and opinion peculiar to them was first 
taught. . . . Some are called Marcionites, some Valen- 
tinians, some Basilidians, and some Saturnilians; and others 
by other names, each deriving his name from the creator of 
his heresy, just as each of those who consider themselves 
philosophers . . . bears the name of the father of the philo- 
sophy he follows.” ! This is the argument outlined already 
in the first Apology;? heresy is inspired by the devils and 
brings forth blasphemies; it originates with men who, like 
the philosophers, follow their own judgment, and therefore 
forfeit the right to be called Christians. 

* ΤΣ 

* 

To the preceding testimonies, which set before us the 
Church as seen from within, we may join that of the pagan 
Celsus, who, although he was an outsider, had made himself 
well acquainted with all that appertained to Christianity, 
because, as a philosopher and as a controversialist, he was 
anxious to speak with knowledge (a boast which he often 
made) of what he was opposing. 

Celsus is a Greek, but most probably a Greek of Rome; 
and his book was written, probably, at Rome during the last 
years of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, between the years 
177-80, in the period when Commodus shared the imperial 
dignity. Despite Origen’s opinion that he is an Epicurean, 
we believe that Celsus is a Platonist:) he is a religious 
pagan, as was possible for a man with Platonic tendencies, 
who, associating the established religion with his love of the 
Roman greatness, is anxious to preserve it, provided it be 
interpreted in an allegorical sense, according to a method 
not unlike that employed by the symbolo-fideism of our day. 
Religion of this sort does but render him the more hostile 


1 “9 Dialog.” xxxv. 6. 2“ Anolog.” 1. 26. 

* Of. Neumann, art. ‘“ Celsus” in Hauck’s ““ Realencyklopidie ”’. 
Still we must not overlook Funx’s hesitations, ‘‘ Die Zeit des Wahren 
Wortes von Celsus,” in his ‘‘ Kirch. Abhandl,” vol, τι, (1899), pp. 152-61, 

19 


194 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


to Christianity, which he undertakes to criticize thoroughly, 
in his “‘ True Discourse ”’. 

In what pertains to Christianity he does not avoid a 
certain number of mistakes to which Origen, according to re- 
cognized tactics of war, does not fail to call due attention ; 
yet he does show a wonderful erudition. He has travelled 
in Phoenicia, Palestine, Egypt. He quotes the Old Testa- 
ment, the Book of Henoch, and the Sibylline oracles: he 
knows the four canonical Gospels, and also other texts from 
which “‘he draws against Jesus and against us objections 
he could not draw from our Gospels”’.! It is not proved that 
he was acquainted with the Acts of the Apostles; but he 
knows St. Paul’s ideas, although it is uncertain whether 
he had read his Epistles. Celsus distinguishes between the 
authentic Gospel texts, and those which “‘certain Christian 
believers (like persons who in a fit of drunkenness mutilate 
themselves), have corrupted from their original integrity 
three times, four times, and even more, so that they might 
be able to answer objections’’: words that doubtless refer to 
the Marcionites.2 That Celsus was acquainted with the 
work of St. Justin, we cannot affirm. On the other hand, 
he does know the “ Dialogue” —now lost—‘‘of Jason and 
Papiscus,” which he says, ‘‘is rather pitiable and detestable 
than ridiculous”. He has perused many Marcionite and 
Gnostic writings. After having consulted such disparate 
sources of information, it is very strange that Celsus should 
have had a normal view of Christianity, one which really 
corresponds with Catholic institutions as they were towards 
the middle of the second century. 

Celsus does not denounce Christianity primarily as a 
superstition contrary to the naturalism which he believes 
to be the truth, but as an unlawful association. Christians, 
he says, enter among themselves into secret agreements that 
are,contrary to the laws, and these agreements, which con- 
stitute the mutual love of Christians, are made in view of 
the common danger, and are more binding than sacred oaths 
a. 1). Their whole worship is secret, for in case they are 
denounced, death is their punishment (I. 3). (Ww ell and good, 


1OrIGEN, ‘‘ Contra Cels.” τι. 74. 
2 « Contra Cels.” 1. 27, 3 [bid, tv. 52. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 195 


were their doctrine reasonable ; but they accept without any 
reason ‘‘dogmas”’ that are simply absurd. } ‘‘ Certain persons 
among them,” Celsus writes, ‘‘ who do not wish either to give 
or receive a reason for their belief, keep repeating: ‘Do ποῦ. 
examine, but believe!’ and ‘Your faith will save you!” ) 
Celsus affirms that they say: ‘‘In this life wisdom is bad, 
but foolishness is a good thing’’.! 

He knows well that among Christians there are found 
honourable, gentle and cultivated men—‘‘capable of com- 
prehending allegories,” he says:* however, most Christians 
are simple and uneducated (1. 27). Of these simple people 
he draws a kind of sketch, in which, under his caricature of 
their characteristics, we detect a reality which we are not 
surprised to meet: the pathetic missionary spirit of those 
‘‘workers in wool and leather, fullers, and persons of the 
most ignorant sort, who nevertheless are zealous in bringing 
women and children to their faith (m1. 55). The instruction 
required by these lowly chents is furnished by presbyters 
who are hardly less ignorant than themselves, says Celsus. 

At the beginning of Christianity, Christians were few 
and had only one mind; but as they spread and became a 
multitude, they ceased to agree and branched off into many 
sects, ‘‘each wishing to have his own party” (ir. 10). 
Those who separate from the “‘ multitude” anathematize one 


1“ Contra Cels.” τ. 9: φησὶ δέ τινας μηδὲ βουλομένους διδόναι ἢ Aap- 
βάνειν λόγον περὶ ὧν πιστεύουσι, χρῆσθαι τῷ “μὴ ἐξέταζε ἀλλὰ πίστευσον," 
καὶ “ ἡ πίστις σου σώσει Ge” καί φησιν αὐτοὺς λέγειν “ κακὸν ἡ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ 
σοφία, ἀγαθὸν δὲ ἡ popia”. Cf. ibid. 19. 

* On allegory, especially among the Stoics, as a method of interpreting 
religious myths, cf. P. DecHarmg, ‘‘ La critique des traditions religieuses 
chez les Grees”’ (Paris, 1904), p. 270 and foll. 

*** Contra Cels.” vi. 40. Cf. 1.72 and 77. As regards the spread 
of Christianity among the educated classes, see HarnacK, ‘‘ Mission,” 
vol. 1. pp. 408-18. Catholicism opposed authority to criticism and to 
Gnostic speculation. A ‘‘ philosopher” like Justin was rather an ex- 
ception ; and such a man had very little influence on the cultivated pagans 
of his time. Celsus does not know him at all. In spite of Origen and his 
disciples, Christianity found its opponent in ‘‘ the ancient learning,” 
and in what may be called the higher education of the old world. 
Cumont, ‘‘ Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain,” p. 324, 
thinks that until the end of the fifth century the higher education re- 
mained in the hands of the heathen. 


19." 


196 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


another, and continue to have only the name in common, if 
it can be said that they have anything at all in common.! 
Celsus mentions successively the Simonians (the disciples of 
Simon Magus), the Carpocratians, whom he knows only by 
name, the Marcionites, whom, on the contrary, he seems to 
have met and questioned (v. 62). All these factions, he 
continues, fiercely tear one another. In Pheenicia and 
Palestine, he has come across prophets and prophetesses, 
visionaries who are the forerunners of the Montanists.® 

Did we pay attention only to these features, we might 
believe that Christianity was then in a state of universal 
disunion. But we must not forget that Celsus beheld it 
first united in a charity that seemed to him like a covenant 
of mutual defence, or that he himself has noted down that 
those sects were separate factions which had almost nothing 
in common. There are then two Christian bodies opposing 
each other, the one united—the other disunited; and it is 
in the same light that, somewhat later, St. Irenzeus describes 
heresies. Even Celsus clearly realizes that the Christian 
body, that which has not gone off into schism, forms a 
visible unity, based on the unity of faith, between all the 
members of which there is perfect solidarity: he defines this 
unity by a striking epithet: ‘‘the great Church.” ‘ 


* * 
ΕΠ » 


If we now attempt to extract from the preceding analysis 
the leading ideas, we may say in the first place, that Chris- 
tianity is regarded with insistence as a real and visible col- 
lectivity, spread lke a race over the whole world (Hermas, 
Abercius, Justin); that, among all the dispersed groups or 
communities of which it is made up, there is cohesion and 
exchange, in other words an inter-ecclesiastical bond which 
is felt by all (Polycarp, the Smyrnians, Abercius, Dionysius of 


τ ἐς Contra Cels.” m1. 12: ὑπὸ πλήθους πάλιν διιστάμενοι. 

2 Ibid. v. 63 and 64. 3 Ibid. vit. 9 and vii. 45. 

4 Ibid. v. 59: σαφῶς ye τῶν ἀπὸ μεγάλης ἐκκλησίας τοῦτο ὁμολογούντων 
κιτιλ. Here it is question of the faith regarding creation and the work of 
the six days, common to the Christians and to the Jews, probably in con- 
trast with the Marcionites. Compare v. 61: τί τοῦτο φέρει ἔγκλημα τοῖς 
ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ods ἀπὸ τοῦ πλήθους ὠνόμασεν ὁ Κέλσος ; he opposes 


the great Church (τὸ πλῆθος) to the Ebionites. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 19% 


Corinth, Celsus) ; that especially, in all that pertains to the 
faith, there exists an agreement which is likewise felt by all 
(Hegesippus, Abercius, Dionysius, Hermas, Justin, Celsus) ; 
so that at first sight the heretics appear as strangers (Papas, 
Pantzenus, Hermas, Celsus). 

This concord of the Churches in their faith results from 
the fact that the faith is regarded as a divine teaching, 
first received and then faithfully transmitted as a deposit : 
it is the Lord’s teaching (Polycarp, Papias), or, more pre- 
cisely, the teaching of the Lord, of the Prophets, of the 
Apostles (Polycarp, Papias, Hegesippus, Panteenus, Justin), 
a teaching propagated and vouched for by the Apostles (Poly- 
carp, Papias, Hegesippus, Pantenus, Justin), received and 
handed down by the presbyters (Polycarp, Anicetus, Papias, 
Pantzenus), the transmission of which has been made concrete 
in the succession of bishops (Hegesippus) to whom the faith- 
ful must submit (Polycarp, “‘ Secunda Clementis,” Dionysius, 
Hermas). 

It is this unity of faith—Catholic faith, Apostolic faith— 
which they were wont to contrast with the heresies: but the 
unity lies far deeper, for it embraces the whole ecclesiastical 
life, liturgy and discipline, in subjection to the authority of 
the hierarchy (Polycarp, Hegesippus, Abercius, Dionysius, 
Hermas, Justin). 

Rome is a centre in which the faith of all the faithful 
(Polycarp, Abercius, Hegesippus, Dionysius) is concerned. 

The heretics can appeal only to the man after whom 
they have been called (Hegesippus, Justin): their systems 
are unreasonable and contradict one another (Hegesippus, 
Pantzenus, Justin, Celsus). 

The idea of the unseen or pneumatic Church, pre-exist- 
ing ever since the beginning of the world, is one that is 
developed only by the author of the ‘Secunda Clementis” 
and by Hermas. 


II. 


St. Irenzeus, a native of Asia, lived as a youth at Smyrna 
under the eyes of St. Polycarp, in the midst of the presbyters 
who, like Polycarp, have «conversed with St. John and 
the other witnesses of the Saviour”; and he must have 


198 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


spent in Asia more than the years of his youth. Towards 
the year 155, he is in Rome, at the time when St. Justin is 
teaching there. When the persecution of Marcus Aurelius 
breaks out, the Church of Lyons, to whose presbyteriwm 
Irenzus belongs, sends him to Rome as the bearer of a letter 
from the confessors of Lyons to Pope Eleutherius. On his 
return from Rome, he is made Bishop of Lyons (177-8). It 
is at Lyons that Ireneus composes his great work in five 
books against the Gnostics: the first three books date from 
the time of Pope Eleutherius, probably from the period 
180-9; the last two were composed during the time of Pope 
Victor (189-98). This great work is not a Περὶ ἐκκλησίας, 
the title of a book, now lost, by Melito, Bishop of Sardis; 
but, whilst refuting the Gnostic error, it expounds the theory 
of the Church and of her doctrinal function with such fullness 
and firmness that the third book is a veritable treatise on 
the Church, and the oldest in existence.! 
mee 

The first point we notice in the ecclesiology of Irenzus 
is the importance he ascribes to the diffusion of Christianity 
and to the unity of faith maintained in this dispersion. 
True, this point is not new; but under the pen of Irenzus 
it attains to the value of an argument, and no one before 
him had set it forth with such eloquence. 

The Church, dispersed all over the world and reaching 
its utmost boundaries, has one and the same rule of faith, 
of which Irenzeus mentions successively the various articles: 
one God, Father Almighty ; one Jesus Christ, son of God, 
become man for our salvation; the Holy Ghost, which 
announced through the Prophets the designs of God; the 
incarnation, virginal conception, passion, resurrection and 
ascension of the well-beloved Jesus Christ our Lord, His 
future return for the restoration of all things and for the 
bodily resurrection of mankind. 


1'To the treatise ‘‘ Adversus hereses’’ we must add the small treatise 
in Armenian recently found, Eis ἐπίδειξιν τοῦ ἀποστολικοῦ κηρύγματος, and 
published in 1907 : K. Ter MeKerrrscHian and Εἰ. Ter Minasstantz, ‘‘ Des 
heil. Irendus Schrift zum Erweise der apostolischen Verkiindigung (Leip- 
zig, 1907). The ““ Demonstratio” (as we shall call it), is subsequent to the 
‘* Ady. heer.” to which it refers the reader (ch. 99). 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. [TREN ΤᾺ 199 


This is the rule or canon of the faith that is professed 
everywhere,' as though the Church, spread in the vast uni- 
verse, dwelt in but one house. Lach one of the faithful, on 
the day of baptism, binds himself to profess this faith ;* 
and thus the Church has but one heart, one soul, one voice, 
one mouth. There are many languages, indeed, in the world, 
but the tradition is one. Churches have been founded in 
Germany, but their faith does not differ from ours; the same 
is to be said of the Churches in Spain and in Gaul, in the 
Kast and in Egypt, in Libya and in Judea.? Just as the 
sun, God’s creature, is the same for the whole universe, so 
too the preaching of the truth is the Light that shines every- 
where and enlightens all those who are willing to know it. 
The most eloquent bishops—for the bishops are at the head of 
the Churches, “ praeswnt ecclesiis,’—can teach nothing 
else, nor can the least important among them lessen it in 
any way:* so is it in the Church which is established every- 


1“ Haer.” τ. 10, 1: ‘* Ecclesia enim per universum orbem usque ad 
fines terrae disseminata, et ab apostolis et a discipulis eorum accepit eam 
fidem quae est unum Deum, patrem omnipotentem. ...” For the 
parallel passages in Irenzeus, cf. Hann, ‘‘ Bibliothek der Symbole,” pp. 
6-8. Add ‘‘ Demonstr.” 6. 

2“ Haer.” 1.9, 4: ‘‘ Regulam veritatis immobilem (κανόνα τῆς ἀλη- 
θείας ἀκλινῆ) . . . , quam per baptismum accepit [quisque].” Cf. mz. 11, 
1; 15, 1, and ‘‘ Demonstr.” 6. The expression regula fidei or κανὼν τῆς 
ἀληθείας does not strictly and always designate the baptismal symbol, but 
the faith common to all the Churches, the tradition. For Irenzeus, cf. 
the remarks of Karrensuscn, vol. 11. p. 31 and foll. Cf. Vora, ‘‘ Kine 
verschollene Urkunde des antimontanistischen Kampfes ” (Leipzig, 1891), 
pp. 185-207. 

%Trenzeus does not use the word Judza; he says: ai κατὰ μέσα 
τοῦ κόσμου. Christians thought that Judzea and Jerusalem were at the 
centre of the world. 

+“ δου." 1. 10, 2: ‘‘ Hanc praedicationem cum acceperit et hanc 
fidem, quemadmodum praediximus, Ecclesia, et quidem in universum 
mundum disseminata, diligenter custodit, quasi unam domum inhabitans, 
et similiter credit iis, videlicet quasi unam animam habens et unum cor, 
et consonanter haec praedicat et docet et tradit quasi unum possidens os. 
Nam etsi in mundo loquelae dissimiles sunt, sed tamen virtus traditionis 
una et eadem est. Et neque hae quae in GERMANIA sunt fundatae ec- 
clesiae aliter credunt aut aliter tradunt, neque hae quae in H1IBERIS sunt, 
neque hae quae in CELTIS, neque hae quae in ORIENTE, neque hae quae 
in AlcypTo, neque hae quae in Lrpya, neque hae quae in medio mundi 
constitutae : sed sicut sol, creatura Dei, in universo mundo unus et idem 


200 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


where: ‘‘Ha quae est in quoquo loco Ecclesia universa’’.' 
If the word “‘catholic” is missing both in the vocabulary of 
Trenzus and in that of his Latin translator, he has the 
thing.” 


* * 
* 


Unity and Catholicity are merely human facts, unless the 
faith has its source in the teaching of the Prophets, of the 
Lord, and of the Apostles. Ireneus sets in strong relief 
this trilogy, so often pointed out by others before him.* By 
Prophets, he means also the Law, “‘ legislationis minis- 
tratio”’; as to the Apostles, he distinguishes between their 
preaching, which was oral, and their ‘‘dictatio,”’ the testa- 
ment which they dictated. ««Quoniam autem dictis nostris 
consonat praedicatio apostolorum, et Domini magisterium, et 
prophetarum annuntiatio, et apostolorum dictatio, et legisla- 
tionis ministratio, unum eumdemque omnium Deum Patrem 
fundantium. .. .”* 

The only true and vivifying faith is that which the 
Church has received from the Apostles and now distributes 


est, sic et lumen, praedicatio veritatis, ubique lucet et illuminat omnes 
homines qui volunt ad cognitionem veritatis venire. Et neque is qui 
valde praevalet in sermone ex iis qui praesunt ecclesiis, alia quam haec 
sunt dicet, . . . neque infirmus in dicendo deminorabit traditionem.’— 
See also ‘‘ Haer.” τι. 31, 2, mr. 4, 1, m. 11, 8, v. 20, 1-2 and “‘De- 
monstr.”’ 98. 

1¢6 Faer.” 1. 31, 2. ὍΝ ** Demonstr.” 98. 

2HARNACK, ‘‘Dogmeng.” vol. 1. p. 371. However, Irenzeus writes 
(‘‘Haer.” 1. 11, 8): ἐπειδὴ τέσσαρα κλίματα τοῦ κόσμου ev ᾧ ἐσμὲν εἰσί, 
καὶ τέσσαρα καθολικὰ πνεύματα. The Latin translator says: ‘‘ Quatuor 
principales spiritus ”’. 

9. ἐς Haer.” τι. 2,6: ‘‘ Jam quidem ostendimus unum esse Deum: ex 
ipsis autem apostolis et ex Domini sermonibus adhuc ostendemus. Quale 
enim est, prophetarum et Domini et apostolorum relinquentes nos voces, 
attendere his [=haereticis] nihil sani dicentibus?” τπ 9, 1: ‘* Ostenso 
hoc igitur plane . . . neminem alterum ... Deum, neque prophetas, 
neque apostolos, neque Dominum Christum, confessum esse.” 11. 17, 4: 
“‘Spiritu . . . uno et eodem existente, sicut et ipse Dominus testatur, 
et apostoli confitentur, et prophetae annuntiant.” 

4[π|. 35, 4]. A favourite expression of Irenzus. Cf. m. 30, 9: 
“Deus . . . quem et Lex annuntiat, quem prophetae praeconant, quem 
Christus revelat, quem Apostoli tradunt, quem Ecclesia credit.” This 
insistence in bringing together the Old and the New Testament is motived 
apparently by his purpose of refuting Marcionism. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 201 


to her children; for the Lord has given His Gospel to His 
Apostles: “Qui vos audit me audit, qui vos contemnit me 
contemnit et eum qui misit me”. Hence the mission of the 
Apostles as teachers cannot be questioned: from them we 
obtain the truth, i.e. the doctrine of the Son of God.! 

In the case of the Gospels, one sees at once the import- 
ance [renzus attaches to the fact that they were composed 
by the Apostles or by writers whose authority is vouched 
for by the Apostles. Matthew and John were Apostles: 
John composed his Gospel during his stay at Ephesus; 
Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, at the time when 
Peter and Paul ‘‘ Romae euangelizarent et fundarent Kecle- 
siam”’. Mark was one of Peter’s disciples, and his inter- 
preter; he has put down in writing what Peter preached. 
Luke was of the number of Paul’s companions, and he in like 
manner has written down the Gospel preached by Paul (111. 
1,1). This short literary history of the Gospel is a justifica- 
tion of their Apostolic authority.? 

Irenzus, who like his contemporaries, has a pronounced 
taste for symbolism, finds a connexion between the four 
Gospels and the expansion of the Church over the whole 
world. As there are four winds of heaven, so there are four 
Gospels:* these four Gospels are the four pillars of the 
Church, which has for her foundation the spirit that inspired 
the Gospel; this Spirit breathes life into mankind by means 
of the Church. 

The unwritten teaching of the Apostles has for its wit- 
ness the teaching of the “‘ presbyters,” 1.6. of the immediate 


1“ Haer.” mt. praef.: ‘‘ Dominus omnium dedit apostolis suis potes- 
tatem euangelii, per quos et veritatem, hoc est Dei filii doctrinam, cog- 
novimus.” Cf. m1. 1, 1, and ‘‘ Demonstr.” 41. 

* This authentication of the four Gospels is not peculiar to Irenzeus : 
it is found already in Papias, ap. Huses. “Ἢ. E.” 111. 39, 15-16, also in 
Clement of Alexandria, who did not know Irenzus. ‘‘ Hypotyp.” ap. 
Euses. “Η. EF.” 1.15. Likewise, in the ‘‘Muratorianum”. We have 
here, together with a valuable tradition, a thesis of apologetics. 

*“ Haer.” mt. 11, 8: ‘‘ Quoniam quatuor regiones mundi sunt in 
quo sumus, et quatuor principales spiritus, et disseminata est Ecclesia 
super omnem terram, columna autem et firmamentum Ecclesiae est 
euangelium et spiritus vitae, consequens est quatuor habere eam col- 
umnas, undique flantes incorruptibilitatem et vivificantes homines.” 


202 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


disciples of the Apostles.! Thus, as to the question whether 
the ministry of Jesus lasted only one year, as 1s supposed by 
the Valentinian Ptolemy, we must believe the Gospel and the 
‘““presbyters,” who tell us that Jesus was baptized when he 
was about 30 years old, and was still teaching at the age of 
about 50. By πρεσβύτεροι or seniores Ireneus designates 
here the elders who have known St. John in Asia and who 
witness that such was truly on this point the teaching of 
the Apostle, the Lord’s disciple. But the word “‘ presbyters ” 
has a wider meaning, for it designates also those who in 
the Church are the depositaries both of the living authority 
and of the doctrine inherited from the Apostles. 

(tv. 82, 1.1 ‘*Omnis sermo ei constabit, si et scripturas 
diligenter legerit apud eos quiin Kcclesia sunt presbyteri 
apud quos est apostolica doctrina, quemadmodum demons- 
travimus.” 

Any one, provided he be even slightly attentive, can 
behold in every Church the transmission of the Apostolic 
doctrine, authenticated by the actual bishops who date back 
from the Apostles through a continuous and ascertainable 
succession. 

(i. 3, 1.] ‘‘Traditionem itaque apostolorum in toto 
mundo manifestatam, in omni ecclesia adest respicere om- 
nibus qui vera velint videre: et habemus annumerare eos 
qui ab apostolis instituti sunt episcopi, et successores eorum 
usque ad nos. . . .” 

The Apostles are the ‘‘dodecastylum firmamentum Ec- 
clesiae,” a foundation laid by Christ Himself.2 It behoves us 
to adhere to their legitimate successors, who preserve their 
doctrine, and who have received together with the order of 


1 ἐς Demonstr.” 3: ‘* Der Glaube ist es nun, der dies in uns veran- 
lasst, wie die Aeltesten, die Schuller der Apostel, uns tiberliefert haben ”’. 
2‘¢ Haer.” i. 22, 5: ‘*. . . Sicut euangelium et omnes seniores 


testantur, qui in Asia apud Ioannem discipulum Domini convenerunt, id 
ipsum tradidisse eis loannem. Permansit autem cum eis [Joannes] usque 
ad Traiani tempora. Quidam autem eorum non solum loannem, sed et 
alios apostolos viderunt, et haec eadem ab ipsis audierunt, et testantur de 
huiusmodi relatione. Quibus magis oportet credi? Utrumne his talibus, 
an Ptolemaeo, qui apostolos nunquam vidit, vestigium autem apostoli ne 
in somniis quidem assecutus est ?’” 
att aor.” ἸΥ: 1] 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 203 


the presbyterate the secure charism of truth.! There is no 
truth outside the teaching of the Apostles, no teaching of the 
Apostles outside Catholicism, no Catholicism outside the epis- 
copal succession. 

It would be too long to enumerate the episcopal lists of 


9 


all the Churches, writes Irenzeus ;” it will suffice to recall the 
list of a Church which is the greatest, most ancient and 
best known of all Churches, that founded by the two glorious 
Apostles, Peter and Paul, the Church of Rome. For, after 
founding and organizing this Church, the Blessed Apostles 
left its government in the hands of Linus who was succeeded 
by Anacletus. The third to receive the episcopate after the 
Apostles was Clement, who had seen the Apostles and con- 
versed with them, who had heard the very sound of their 
preaching, and himself beheld their tradition. After Clement 
came Evaristus, then Alexander, Sixtus, Telesphorus who 
died a martyr, Hyginus, Pius, Anicetus, and Soter; the 
twelfth successor of the Apostles, Eleutherius, is now the 


1“ Haer.” Iv. 26, 2: ‘‘ Eis qui in Ecclesia sunt presbyteris obaudire 
oportet, his qui successionem habent ab apostolis, . . . qui cum episco- 
patus successione charisma veritatis certum ... acceperunt; reliquos 
vero qui absistunt a principali successione et quocunque loco colligunt, 
suspectos habere, vel quasi haereticos et malae sententiae, vel quasi 
scindentes et elatos et 5101 placentes.” Jbid. 4: ‘‘ Ab omnibus igitur 
talibus absistere oportet, adhaerere vero his qui et apostolorum, sicut 
praediximus, doctrinam custodiunt, et cum presbyterii ordine sermonem 
sanum....” Ibid. 5: ‘‘ Ubi igitur charismata Domini posita sunt, ibi 
discere oportet veritatem, apud quos est ea quae ab apostolis Ecclesiae suc- 
cessio. . . .” 

The remarkable expression ‘‘ charisma veritatis certum ” has a parallel 
in the preface of the ‘‘ Philosophoumena ” (‘‘ P. G.” vol. xv1. p. 3020). 
Gnostic errors will be refuted by the Holy Spirit which is transmitted in 
the Church, which the Apostles first received, which they imparted to the 
faithful, and which we, their successors, possess together with their priest- 
hood and their magisteriwm, since we are the guardians of the Church : 
Ταῦτα δὲ ἕτερος οὐκ ἐλέγξει ἢ τὸ ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ παραδοθὲν ἅγιον πνεῦμα, οὗ 
τυχόντες, πρότεροι οἱ ἀπόστολοι μετέδοσαν τοῖς ὀρθῶς πεπιστευκύσιν, ὧν ἡμεῖς 
διάδοχοι τυγχάνοντες τῆς τε αὐτῆς χάριτος μετέχοντες ἀρχιερατείας τε καὶ 
διδασκαλίας καὶ φρουροὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας λελογισμένοι. 

5“ Maer.” 11. 3, 2-3. Irenzsus probably means to say that this was 
done elsewhere and by some one else, and we naturally think of Hege- 


sippus. 


204 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Roman episcopus.1 This succession is the channel through 
which the tradition of the Church and the message of truth 
have come down to us. 

After this appeal to the testimony of the Roman Church, 
which he has some reason to know well and some reason 
to esteem more highly than any other Church, Ireneus 
cites the Church of Smyrna, where in his youth, he knew 
St. Polycarp, who had been taught by the Apostles and had 
conversed with the immediate witnesses of the Lord: Poly- 
carp, he says, professed to teach what he held from the 
Apostles, as is witnessed by the Churches of Asia and by 
the bishops who have succeeded Polycarp in the see of 
Smyrna. What has been thus established concerning Rome 
and Smyrna may be generalized. We must conclude then 
that the Church has authority because she preserves the 
authentic heritage of the faith of the Apostles. 

(ur. 4, 1.] “‘Tantae igitur ostensiones cum sint, non 
oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem, quam facile est 
ab Kcclesia sumere, cum apostoli, quasi in depositorium dives, 
plenissime in eam contulerint omnia quae sint veritatis. . . . 
Ht si de aliqua modica quaestione disceptatio esset, nonne 
oporteret in antiquissimas recurrere ecclesias, in quibus 
apostoli conversati sunt, et ab eis de praesenti quaestione 
sumere quod certum et re liquidum est?” 

rae 

The Church is ‘“‘the Church of God”.2 She is a body 

of which the Word is the head, as the Father is the head of 


1 Regarding the origin of this Roman chronology, see the note in 
Ducuesne, ‘‘ Histoire ancienne,” t. 1, p. 92. Even supposing that the 
Roman episcopal list was drawn up at Rome by Hegesippus, in the time 
of Anicetus, towards the year 160, and that for this point Irenzeus de- 
pends on Hegesippus, this episcopal list is equally valuable. For a good 
discussion of Harnack’s paradox about the late (under Anicetus ?) estab- 
lishment of the monarchical episcopate at Rome, cf. J. Turmet, ‘‘ Hist. 
du dogme de la papauté” (Paris, 1908) who concludes in the same sense 
as Mer. Ducuesne and H. Béumer, ‘‘ Zur altrémischen Bischofsliste,” 
in the ‘‘ Zeitschrift fiir die neut. Wissenschaft, 1906,” pp. 333-9. See 
also Micutzts, ‘‘ Origine de l’épiscopat,” pp. 306-36 and Dom J. CHAPMAN, 
ἐς La chronologie des premiéres listes épiscopales de Rome,” in the ‘‘ Revue 
bénédictine,” xvii. (1901), pp. 399-417, xrx. (1902), pp. 13-37 and 145-70. 

2“ Haer.” 1. 6, 3, and 13, 5. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN.ZUS 205 


Christ: the Holy Ghost is in each one of her members.! 
There is, then, between the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, 
and the faithful of the Church, such real and unseen com- 
munication that what St. Paul writes of the Church invisible 
is true of the Church visible. The Church visible is that 
through which we belong to the invisible Church, and we 
belong to the Church visible through our adhesion to the 
Apostolic teaching continued by the bishops of the Catholic 
world: ‘‘ Agnitio vera est apostolorum doctrina, et antiquwus 
Ecclesiae status in wniverso mundo, et character corporis 
Christi, secundum successiones episcoporum, quibus ili 
[apostoli] eam quae in unoquoque loco est ecclesiam tradi- 
derunt”.? The Catholic Church is something organic, . 
TO ἀρχαῖον τῆς ἐκκλησίας σύστημα, and, thus it has the 
character of Christ’s body. Schism is a sin which on the 
day of the last judgment the Holy Ghost will judge most 
severely: woe to any one who sacrifices unity! woe to him 
who rends Christ’s glorious body! The Spirit will judge all 
those who are outside truth, i.e. outside the Church.’ 

The Spirit aids the Church. If the preaching of the 
latter 1s so constant, it is because the Spirit of God renews 
its youth, as an exquisite deposit preserved in a goodly 
vessel, and the Spirit of God keeps the vessel itself from be- 
coming old.* The Spirit is the gift made by God to His 
Church, just as God imparted breath to Adam, His creature, 
in order that that breath might vivify his members. 


DO ELACE: Wa 19. 2. 

*Tbid. tv. 33, 8. In Greek: γνῶσις ἀληθὴς ἡ τῶν ἀποστόλων 
διδαχή, καὶ τὸ ἀρχαῖον τῆς ἐκκλησίας σύστημα κατὰ παντὸς τοῦ κόσμου. 
OriGEN, ‘‘ Contra Cels.” tr. 7 and 31, speaks in the same sense of the 
σύστασις of Christians. He admires their incredible organization : 
παραδόξως συστάντας χριστιανούς. Id. vit. 47. Soum (‘‘ Kirchenrecht,” 
p. 202), translates σύστημα ‘‘ die Kérperschaft, die organisierte Gesamtheit 
der Ekklesia”. See his note on this text. 

3“ Haer.” τν. 33,7: ‘(Spiritus Dei] iudicabit . . . eos quischismata 
operantur, qui sunt inanes, non habentes Dei dilectionem suamque 
utilitatem potius considerantes quam unitatem Ecclesiae, et propter 
modicas ei quaslibet causas magnum et gloriosum corpus Christi conscin- 
dunt et dividunt et quantum in ipsis est interficiunt. . . . Iudicabit 


autem et omnes eos qui sunt extra veritatem, id est qui sunt extra 
Ecclesiam.”’ 


Eaer., m0. 24; 1, 


206 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


(ΤῊ ea! disposita est communicatio Christi, id est 
Spiritus sanctus, arrha incorruptelae et confirmatio fidei 
nostrae et scala ascensionis ad Deum. Jn ecclesia enim, in- 
quit, posuwit Deus apostolos, prophetas, doctores [1 Cor. ΧΙ. 
28], eb universam reliquam operationem Spiritus, cuius non 
sunt participes omnes qui non currunt ad Ecclesiam, sed 
semetipsos fraudant a vita per sententiam malam et opera- 
tionem pessimam. Ubi enim Ecclesia 101 et Spiritus Dei, 
et ubi Spiritus Dei illic Ecclesia et omnis gratia: Spiritus 
autem veritas. Quapropter qui non participant eum, neque 
a mammillis matris nutriuntur in vitam, neque percipiunt 
de corpore Christi procedentem nitidissimum fontem’’.? 

What Christ gives us through the Church is the Holy 
Ghost, which is for us a pledge of incorruptibility, the con- 
firmation of our faith, the ladder by which we ascend to God. 
Outside the Church, there can be no share in the Spirit; 
but where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God. 
Where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church, and the 
Spirit is Truth. 

In Ireneus, we find none of the apocalyptic views of 
Hermas or of the ‘‘ Secunda Clementis”’.® The Church isa 
number; she is a people; she is a church of churches, that 
is as visible as the pillar of salt into which Lot’s wife was 
changed, and, notwithstanding all kinds of trials, remains 
incorruptible, the true salt of the earth, still better, a living 
statue whose limbs grow again after they have been lopped 
off.4 


1The text reads in co, (Massuet). I read in ea, referring ea to the 
Church. 

266 Maer.” τι. 24,1. Cf. τι. 32, 4. 

3Cf. ‘‘Demonstr.” 26, and ‘‘ Haer.” Iv. 8, 1. and v. 20,2. No pre- 
existence, only figures are affirmed. 

4°¢ Haer.” v. 34, 3: ‘*Quoniam autem repromissiones non solum 
prophetis et patribus, sed ecclesiis ex gentibus coadunatis annuntiabuntur, 
quas et insulas nuncupat spiritus, et quod in medio turbulae sint consti- 
tutae, et tempestatem blasphemiarum sufferant, et salutaris portus pericli- 
tantibus existant, et refugium sunt eorum qui altitudinem ament et bythum 
id est profundum erroris conantur effugere.” Instead of ament, we should 
like to read amentiae. This comparison of churches to islands that pos- 
sess safe havens is also found in THrEopHILUS or AntiocH ‘‘ Ad Autolyce.” 
ΤΙ, 14. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN ASUS 207 


[ν. 31, 3.) ‘*EKt cum haec fierent, uxor remansit. in 
Sodomis, iam non caro corruptibilis, sed statua salis semper 
manens, et, per naturalia ea quae sunt consuetudinis hominis, 
ostendens quoniam et Hcclesia quae est sal terrae subrelicta 
est in confinio terrae patiens quae sunt humana; et, dum 
saepe auferuntur ab ea membra integra, perseverat statua 
salis, quod est firmamentum fidei, firmans et praemittens 
filios ad patrem ipsorum.”’! 

Let us not pass without due attention over these few 
lines of uninviting Latin; and let us be grateful to one who, 
though born in Asia, was a citizen of Lyon, for discovering 
this expressive symbol of the stability, the miraculous and 
indefectible life of the Church. 

τη 

A last element in which the ecclesiology of Ireneus 
agrees with that of his predecessors is in the place he as- 
signs to the Roman Church. 

As we have seen already, he gives her the name of 
“maacimae, et antiquissimae, et omnibus cognitae, a glorio- 
sissumis duobus apostolis Petro et Paulo Romae fundatae et 
constitutae ecclesiae’’.2 The same thought he expresses in 
words that are still more emphatic and well known.’ . 

(m1. 8, 2.7] ‘*Ad hance enim Kcclesiam propter potentio- 
rem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, 
hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his 
qui sunt undique conservata est ea quae est ab apostolis tra- 
ditio. 

The original Greek text of this phrase is missing; so 
that we have here only a translation with the risk of its 


1 Trenzeus is alluding to the Haggadic legend according to which the 
statue of Lot’s wife had its periods like a living woman, and its members 
grew again after being broken. 

a Har.” ται. 3, 2. 

* Cf. Funk, ‘‘ Der Primat der rém. K. nach Ignatius und Iveniius,” 
in his ‘‘ Kircheng. Abhandlungen,” vol. 1. pp. 12-23. Harnack, ‘‘ Das 
Zeugniss des I. tiber das Ansehen der rém. K.” in the ‘‘ Sitzungsberichte ” 
of the Berlin Academy, 1893, pp. 939-55. Dom CHapman, “‘ Le témoignage 
de 8. I. en faveur de la primauté romaine,” ‘‘ Revue bénédictine,” vol. 
xu. (1895), pp. 49-64. Dom Morin, ‘‘ Une erreur de copiste dans le 
texte d’Irenée sur l’église romaine,” ‘‘ Revue bénéd,” vol. xxv. (1908), 
pp. 515-20, 


208 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


being more or less inexact in its renderings, a risk not 
lessened by the fact that this Latin translation is quite old, 
dating perhaps from the time of Tertulhan.t 

Ad hanc ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam. 
The necessity of which St. Ireneus speaks is that of a logical 
conclusion.2 He does not mean that every Church must 
agree with the Roman Church merely in the sense that every 
Church, in as far as it preserves the Apostolic tradition in- 
tact, will agree ipso facto with the Roman Church; for, by 
this interpretation, we take all the strength out of such 
a strong expression as convenire ad, which suggests the idea 
of an active step taken to find the truth.’ 

Omnem ecclesiam, hoc est eos qui sunt undique fideles. 

The expression hoc est ushers in an explanatory peri- 
phrasis, and we naturally expect that Irenzus should pro- 
nounce the word “catholic”: but strange as that omission 
may appear, the word ‘‘ catholic,’’—as has been already noted 
—is not found in the terminology of Ireneus. The faithful 
will come to Rome from every place, wndique, an allusion to 
the Christians who, from all the Churches of the world, direct 
their steps towards Rome, like Polycarp, Abercius, Irenzus 
himself, and so many others during the second century.* 

Omnem ecclesiam ... in qua. Every Church will agree 
with the Roman Church, every Church in which. . . . Har- 
nack, Mgr. Duchesne and Funk think that in qua refers, not 
to the Roman Church, as has been long thought, but to the 


1H. Jorpan, ‘‘ Das Alter der lat. Uebers. des Hauptwerkes des 
Ir.” (Leipzig, 1908), p. 60, ascribes it to the latter part of the fourth 
century. 

3 Compare ‘‘ Haer.” v. 20, 1: ‘‘ Necessitatem ergo habent praedicti 
haeretici,” and v. 30, 1: ἔπειτα... ἐμπέσειν ἀνάγκη. 

3 Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 488, after observing that Poly- 
carp deemed it most important to agree with Anicetus, and for that purpose 
made his journey to Rome ; adds: “It was not Anicetus who came to 
Polycarp, but Polycarp to Anicetus. This is also the meaning we attach 
to convenire ad (συντρέχειν). We may recall m1. 4, 1: ‘Si de aliqua 
modica quaestione disceptatio esset, nonne oporteret in antiquissimas 
recurrere ecclesias, in quibus apostoli conversati sunt ?” 

4 About these pilgrims of the second century, like St. Justin, 
Rhodon, Tatian, Irenzeus, Abercius, Polycarp, Hegesippus, Tertullian, 
etc., cf. C. P. Caspart, ‘‘ Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufsymbols,” vol. 11. 
(Christiania, 1875), pp. 336-48, and Harnack, “ Mission,” vol. 1. pp. 311-12, 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤῈ Ν ΚΣ 209 


Churches other than that of Rome. It seems to me that 
Dom Morin’s correction authorises us to understand in qua 
as referring to the Roman Church.! 

In qua semper ab his qua [sunt undique] conservata est 
ea quae est ab apostolis traditio. Dom Morin has luminously 
shown that swnt undique is due to a copyist’s error: these 
two words have been substituted for other words that desig- 
nated the leaders of the Churches (praesunt ecclesiis ?) or 
rather the presbyters who have presided at Rome (president). 

Propter potentiorem principalitatem. The adjective 
used in the comparative implies that the principalitas is 
an attribute that belongs, not exclusively, but pre-eminently 
to the Roman Church. What is, then, this principalitas 
which other Churches possess? We must carefully abstain 
from ascribing to the word a meaning that would not be in 
keeping with the argument of St. renweus. Hence we shall 
not translate it by πρωτεία because that word does not take 
with it any comparative ;? nor by ἡγεμονία because that is 
a term which Irenzus uses always in a genealogical sense ; * 
nor by πλήρωμα, which the translator of Irenzus renders at 
times by principalitas, but which, properly speaking, desig- 
nates the Gnostic pleroma.t’ Some have suggested the word 
αὐθεντία, in this sense that the Roman Church is more 
authentic than any other Apostolic Church, since it was 
founded by the two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul. ‘To 
this origin she owes her ἱκανωτέραν avOevtiay, which requires 
that all Churches shall go to her and take their pattern from 
her? 

At all events, the authority which Ireneus sees in the 


‘Compare ‘‘ Haer.” m1. 3, 1: ‘‘Traditionem apostolorum in toto 
mundo manifestatam, in omni ecclesia adest respicere”. Here we have 
again the expression omnis ecclesia, synonymous with wnaquaeque ecclesia. 

*“* Haer.” rv. 38, 3: ‘ Principalitatem habet in omnibus Deus quon- 
iam et solus infectus et prior omnium ” (πρωτεύει ἐν πᾶσιν ὁ θεός). 

*’Thus, Adam is the head of mankind, he is the ‘‘ principalis plas- 
matio”. ‘‘Haer.” v. 14, Land 2. Likewise mz. 11,8: ‘‘ Primum animal 
principale ” (πρῶτον Ζῶον ἡγεμονικόν). 

4 °° Haer.” τν. 35, 2and 4: Cf. 1. 26,1, and 31, 1. 

*The word αὐθεντία signifies also power, domination, and in 1 Tim. 
τι. 12, αὐθεντεῖν is used in that remarkable sense. Cf. DerssMann, ‘‘ Licht 
vom Osten,” p. 56. 

14 


210 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Catholic Church as such, and inasmuch as she is the safe de- 
positary of the tradition that goes back to the Apostles, 
he sees still more manifestly in the Roman Church. He 
has said: ‘‘ Oportet confugere ad Ecclesiam,”’ meaning the 
Church which is ‘in wniverso mundo,” and which preserves 
“firmam ab apostolis traditionem’.1 He says in like 
words: ‘‘ Necesse est ad hance ecclesiam [romanam] conven- 
ire omnem ecclesiam”’. ‘It would be difficult,’ Mgr. Du- 
chesne writes, ‘‘to meet with a clearer assertion, (1) of 
unity of doctrine in the universal Church, (2) of the unique 
importance of the Church of Rome, as witness, guardian 
and organ of the Apostolic tradition, (3) of her superior 
pre-eminence over the whole of Christianity.” ὦ 


* * 
* 


The Church being for Ireneus the institution, of 
historical fact and divine right, which we have just de- 
scribed, heresy is at once characterized. The Church did 
not organize and, as it were, arm herself, by way of reaction 
against Gnosticism. It is much more in keeping with facts 
to say that Gnosticism was a formation incompatible with 
the Church, which sprang from a reaction against the 
Church. 

Indeed, if we set aside the popular and extravagant 
forms * it assumed here and there, Gnosticism is, historically, 
an attempt on the part of intellectual Christians, some of 
them of an exceptional vigour of mind, to assert their right 
to speculate, to systematize, and to dogmatize, in the proper 
sense of that word, after the fashion of the pagan schools 
of philosophy.) It is easy to reallze that such a claim offends 
against the very notion of the faith received as a deposit, 
and the Gnostics themselves declare emphatically that it 
is so. The teaching of the Church, they say, is for the 
simpliciores only, to which Irenzus replies that, whilst that 
is perfectly true, yet it is far better for any one to be simple 
and unlearned, provided he be near God through charity, 


1 ‘¢ Haer.” v. 20, 2. 3 ἐς Helises Séparées,” p. 119. 


In connexion with the Ophians (or Ophites), Origen, ‘‘ Contra ~ 


Cels.” νι. 28, charges Celsus with taking for a Christian sect an aggrega- 
tion of people who had nothing at all in common with Christianity (cf. 
CLEMENT, ‘‘Stromat.” 1. 2). 


ae 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. TREN AUS 211 


than to know much and blaspheme God as do the Gnostics.! 
We have then before us the antithesis of two methods, one 
secular, the other ecclesiastical, and we find in Gnosticism a 
criticism of Catholicism. 

The Valentinians feel pity for the adherents of the 
Church: they treat the Catholics as common people and 
“ἐ ecclesiastics’; and yet they do their best to seduce those 
simpliciores, by clothing their ideas in ecclesiastical language, 
““nostrum tractatum,”’ says Ireneus, for there is such a 
language. If difficulties are raised against their tenets, if 
any one dares to contradict their statements, they resume 
their supercilious demeanour and declare that Catholics do 
not understand the truth, that they have received none of 
the higher seeds of the ‘‘ Mother,” and are mere psychics. 
The Gnostics are the perfect, the seeds of election: the 
Catholics are illiterate and ignorant. To the psychics? 
belongs the naked faith; to the perfect, the perfect Gnosis.‘ 


1“ Haer.” 11. 26, 1: ‘‘ Melius est ergo et utilius idiotas et parum 
scientes existere, et per charitatem proximum fieri Deo, quam putare 
multum scire eb multa expertos in suum Deum blasphemos inveniri ”. 

“<< Haer.” m1. 15, 2: ‘* Hi enim [quia Valentino sunt] ad multitu- 
dinem—propter eos qui sunt ab Ecclesia, quos communes ecclesiasticos 
ipsi dicunt—inferunt sermones per quos capiunt simpliciores et alliciunt 
eos, simulantes nostrum tractatum. . . . Et si aliquis quidem ex his qui 
audiunt eos quaerat solutiones vel contradicat eis, hunc quasi non capien- 
tem veritatem, et non habentem de superioribus a matre sua semen aftir- 
mantes, in totum nihil dicunt ei, mediarum partium dicentes esse illum, 
hoc est psychicorum.” Notice the word communes (κοινοί) taken as 
synonymous with καθολικοί. Cf. Karrensuscn, vol. τι. p. 924. 

* The adjective ‘‘ psychic” is taken from St. Paul, 1 Cor. τι. 14. In 
Jude 19, it is applied to the man who is not spiritual : ψυχικοὶ 
πνεῦμα μὴ ἔχοντες. The distinction was common in Greek Judaism. Cf. 
FRIEDLANDER, ‘‘ Synagoge und Kirche,” p. 74. 

4“*Wfaer.” τ. 6, 4: ‘‘ Nos quidem, qui per timorem Dei timemus 
etiam usque in mentibus nostris et sermonibus peccare, arguunt quasi 
idiotas et nihil scientes, semetipsos extollunt, perfectos vocantes et semina 
electionis.” Ibid. 2: ‘‘ Erudiuntur psychica (id est animalia) psychici 
(id est animales) homines, qui per operationem et fidem nudam firmantur, 
et non perfectam agnitionem [-- γνῶσιν] habent. Esse autem hos nos, 
qui sumus ab Ecclesia, dicunt.” In confirmation of these words of 
Trenzeus, see the same distinction between psychics and pneumatics in 
Heracleon cited by Ortcen, ‘‘Comment. in Toann.” xm. 16 and 50; 
it was known also to Cetsus, ‘‘ Contra Cels.” v. 61. 


14 * 


212 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


On the contrary, judged from the Catholic standpoint, 
the Gnostics are like Greek sophists, ever seeking after 
novelties.|_ Among them, there is no standard of truth, and, 
as each one makes his own doctrine for himself, they re- 
semble the pagan schools of philosophy: “ Ht contrarva 
sibimet dogmata statuentes, sicut et gentilrum philoso- 
phorum quaestiones’’.? If this method is to be adopted, man 
will continue seeking, ever seeking, and never finding, since 
he has discarded of his own accord the true “‘inventionis dis- 
cyplina’’.® Doctrinal inconstancy is the lot of Gnostics: 
they are sophists doomed for ever to variations of every sort, 
tossed about by the waves of their errors, having no rock 
whereon to rest their edifice, nothing but moving sand.* 
Ireneus already outlines the history of variations. 

When reminded of the authority of Holy Writ, they 
find Holy Writ at fault im one way or another. Its text 
is uncertain, or the book quoted against them does not 
belong to the true canon, or Scripture contradicts Scripture, 
or in fine no one who is ignorant of the tradition can find 
out the truth. We have here an echo of the controversies 
stirred up by the Gnostic leaders as to the text and the 
canon, especially in the field of exegesis where they were 
so prolific; above all we have here a proof that a certain 
number of Gnostics came to acknowledge the principle that 
the letter is not self-sufficing, and that oral tradition does 
complete it and must do so.° But, whereas Catholics, when 
speaking of tradition, know well that there is but one 
tradition, viz. that of which the presbyters impersonally 


Ve? Haer. a. 11... CE a. 18,0 πὸ 7, 10, TV 2a ie eee 

2 Ibid. Ἐπ 27, 1. Ὁ ΤΟΊ. 20,2. Ct. 1 21/6, ales! 

4 Tbid. 1. 24, 2: ““ Alienati a veritate, digne in omni volutantur 
errore, fluctuati ab eo, aliter atque aliter per tempora de eisdem sentientes, 
et nunquam sententiam stabilitam habentes, sophistae verborum magis 
volentes esse quam discipuli veritatis. Non enim sunt fundati super unam 
petram, sed super arenam habentem in seipsa lapides multos.” Cf. τι. 
17, 10. The words ‘‘ fundati super wnam petram” may have been a re- 
miniscence of Matt. xv1. 18. 

5“ Haer.” mr. 2, 1: ‘‘Cum enim ex Scripturis arguuntur, in accusa- 
tionem convertuntur ipsarum Scripturarum, quasi non recte habeant, 
neque sint ex auctoritate, et quia varie sint dictae, et quia non possit ex 
his inveniri veritas ab his qui nesciant traditionem. Non enim per litteras 
traditam illam, sed per vivam vocem”. Cf. 1. 8, 1. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 213 


preserve the deposit, every heretic presents his own fancies 
under the cover of the tradition to which he appeals; and 
truth can no longer be recognized, if to-day we must re- 
cognize its presence in the system of Cerinthus, to-morrow 
in that of Valentinus, next in that of Basilides or of Marcion, 
all of which contradict one another... For can we imagine 
a truth that varies ὃ 

The Gnostics answer that these variations are stages on 
the way towards the definitive truth, which was neither 
possessed by the Apostles nor taught by the Lord. Hence 
no appeal should be made to the tradition that goes back 
to the Apostles and is authoritatively preserved in the 
Churches through the succession of bishops or presbyters ; 
for a Gnostic, after he has found the pure truth and 
reached the mystery that as yet had remained concealed, is 
more enlightened than the presbyters, or even than the 
Apostles themselves.” 

This infatuated individualism, this reliance on human 
gnosis, this pretension to knowledge greater than that of the 
Apostles, is, from the ecclesiastical standpoint, ludicrous 
presumption.® JIrenzeus feels the more justified in denounc- 
ing it, because he can oppose to the variations of the Gnostics 
the perpetuity and unity of the faith of the Church, as a 
sign of truth. Moreover, by its sophistical method, by its 


1“ Haer.” mr. 2, 1. Cf. mr. 16, 9, and 16, 4. We have already 
noticed this argument in St. Justin, and noted with Puech that it was 
borrowed from the Greek schools of philosophy. 

5.“ Maer.” 11. 2,2: “Οὐ autem ad eam iterum traditionem quae 
est ab apostolis, quae per successionem presbyterorum in ecclesiis custo- 
ditur, provocamus eos, adversantur traditioni, dicentes se non solum pres- 
byteris, sed etiam apostolis existentes sapientiores, sinceram invenisse 
veritatem . . . et indubitate et intaminate et sincere absconditum scire 
mysterium. . . . Evenit itaque neque scripturis iam, neque traditioni 
consentire eos.”’ 

* See “ Haer.” m1. 15, 2, in which the sarcastic remarks of Irenzeus 
prelude Tertullian’s irony. 

*“ Haer.” m1. 12, 7 : ‘‘ Imperfectus igitur secundum hos [= haereticos] 
Petrus, imperfecti autem et reliqui apostoli, et oportebit eos reviviscentes 
horum fieri discipulos ut et ipsi perfecti fiant. Sed hoc quidem ridiculum 
est. Arguuntur vero isti [= haeretici], non quidem apostolorum, sed suae 
malae sententiae esse discipuli. Propter hoc autem et variae sententiae 
sunt uniuscuiusque eorum recipientis errorem quemadmodum capiebat. 


214 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


unrestrained criticism of the preaching of the Prophets, of 
the teaching of the Lord, and of the tradition of the Apostles, 
by its constant manipulation of the Scriptures, and its utter 
disregard for the deposit preserved by the presbyters, Gnos- 
ticism proclaims itself an emancipation of the mind, an in- 
tellectual secularization.1 It prompts its followers to have 
recourse to the religious wisdom of Homer, and, after the 
heathen fashion, to crown the images of Jesus, Pythagoras, 
Plato, and Aristotle.2 Harnack declares rightly that, taking 
it as a whole, Gnosticism is ‘‘ Greek society under a Christian 
name”’.® Still more precisely, is it a form of Christianity 
which indulges in all the syncreticisms against which 
Catholicism guards itself. 

At the same time, and because the Church is from the 
beginning a close union of souls and of churches in one and 
the same authoritative faith, Gnosticism, by the very fact of 
pretending to revise the faith, places itself beyond the pale 
of the established unity. Once the bond is broken, heresy 
ceases to be able ever to bring about a lasting unity; it can 
but found schools. ‘There can be no doubt that the Gnostic 
propaganda was seriously hindered by that imability to organ- 
ize and govern Churches which is characteristic of all 
philosophic systems of religion. The Gnostic organization 
of schools and mysteries was not able to contend with the 


Kcclesia vero per universum mundum ab apostolis firmum habens initium, 
in una et eadem de Deo et de filio eius perseverat sententia.” Cf. 1m. 12, 
12 and 1. 13, 6. 

1 ἐς Maer.” 1v.1, 1: ‘‘ Manifeste falsa ostenduntur ea quae dicunt 
circumventores et perversissimi sophistae, . . . et perversi grammatici, 
... doctrinam quidem Christi praetermittentes, et a semetipsis autem falsa 
divinantes, adversus universam Dei dispositionem argumentantur.” Cf. 
τι. 14, 

2«¢ Haer.” 1. 9, 4. Cf. τν. 33,3: ‘‘ Accusabit autem eos Homerus 
proprius ipsorum propheta, a quo eruditi talia invenerunt.” See the 
curious passage, I. 25, 6, in which Irenzeus upbraids the Gnostics—those 
of the school of Carpocrates—for having portraits of Jesus, which they 
say, were made by Pilate (dicentis formam Christi factam a Pilato, 
illo in tempore quo fuit Jesus cum hominibus): these portraits they 
crown: “ΕΓ has coronant, et proponunt eas cum imaginibus mundi 
philosophorum, videlicet cum imagine Pythagorae et Platonis et Aristotelis 
et reliquorum, et reliquam observationem circa eas similiter ut gentes 
faciunt.” ; 

8. **Dogmeng.” vol, τ΄, p. 250, note. Loors, ‘‘ Leitfaden,” p. 105. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 215 


episcopal organization of the Catholic communities”’.1 
Wherever it appears, Gnosticism is a seceder: it detaches it- 
self of its own accord. Hence we must say, not that the 
Church organizes herself to ward off Gnosticism, but rather 
that the Church is so constituted that Gnosticism cannot 
originate or abide freely and openly within her pale. 

In fact, if we set aside the Marcionites, who, alone among 
the heretics of that period, possessed for many years Churches 
of their own, the Gnostics thought only of having disciples. 
Resuming an argument formerly used by Hegesippus and 
by St. Justin, Irenzeus draws up the genealogy, the διαδοχή, 
of the heretics. This argument was doubtless the counterpart 
of that which Catholics drew from the διαδοχή, or the Apostolic 
succession of the bishops, and it was not without a touch 
of irony that orthodox writers connected the heretics with 
Simon Magus.? Nevertheless these genealogical lists of 
heretics—setting aside the legendary elements they contain 
—show how anxious the Gnostics were to appeal to some 
master, prompted however to this by a sentiment that was 
in no way ecclesiastical, but had come from the schools of 
sophists.? 

As to the Church, the Gnostics not only depart from it, 
they also disfigure the idea of it. For them, the Church is 
an «on. The first principle discernible in the pleroma is the 
couple of Abyss and Silence, which brings forth the couple of 
Intelligence and Truth, which brings forth that of the Word 
and of Life, a third couple which in its turn brings forth that 
of Man and of the Church. From this ogdoad proceed the 
other sons, and at last Jesus, who alone will manifest Him- 
self outside the invisible pleroma.t For some Gnostics, it is 
true, Adam is an image of the won Man, and likewise the 
visible Church is an image of the eon Church:? for others, 


1 Harnack, Ibid. p. 278. Soum affirms on the contrary that the 
heretics are Christianity not yet catholicized and represent the ‘old 
style” in face of Catholicism then in the period of its formation. 
‘‘ Kirchenrecht,” p. 188-90. Always the same a priori assumption. 

eS! Haver.” 1. 27, 4: 3 CLEMENT, ‘‘Stromat.” 1. 14. 

4“ Haer.” 1. 1, 1-2. Cf. 11, 1, and also ‘‘ Philosophoumena,” vr. 30, 
43, 46, 51, 53, x. 13. 

5 « Haer.” 1.5, 6: ἐκκλησίαν εἶναι λέγουσιν ἀντίτυπον τῆς ἄνω ἐκκλησίας. 
OrIGEN, ‘‘Comment. in Ioan.” x. 21 (‘‘ P. G.” vol. χιν. p. 376), mentions 


216 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the union of the Father, the Son, and the Christ (the last is 
the son of the Father and of the Son) is the true and holy 
Church ;! for others, the won Church is the archetype of the 
Virgin, the mother of Jesus, by the operation of the Virtus 
altissimt, which is the zon Man joined in the pleroma with 
the «won Church. 


* * 
* 


So much for the fanciful speculations of the Gnostics. 
We must now come back to Irenzus who looks upon 
Christendom as a Church of churches spread all over the 
immense world, but united together by one and the same 
faith. 

This faith is based upon the Old Testament, the Lord, 
and the Apostles; the authenticity of the actual faith is 
guaranteed by the fact that the presbyters received it from 
the Apostles, and the bishops then living from the presbyters 
whom they have replaced through a succession that can be 
ascertained everywhere. The bishops possess the heritage 
of revealed truth. 

The Church of churches is the Body of Christ. Where- 
ever the visible and hierarchical Church is, there is the Spirit 
of God. The Church assisted by the Spirit is indefectible. 

The Church of Rome, the most illustrious of all, is that 
by which all others must be ruled, on account of - her 
potentior principalitas. 

Heresy is illegitimate, because of its origin, its sophistical 
method, its variations, and its feebleness. 

Ireneus’s conception of Catholicism may be summed up 
in these leading ideas; but, as we have shown, this con- 


Heracleon’s view about the resurrection which is to take place in three 
days: the resurrection of matter on the first day, the psychic resurrection 
of the second day, the pneumatic resurrection on the third. The third 
day is that of the resurrection of the Church. This resurrection is prepar- 
ing. Cf. id. xm. 1land 50. St. Hippolytus speaks of a three-fold Church 
imagined by some Gnostics (Naassenians) : the angelic, the psychic, and 
the material Church. ‘‘Philosophoum.” v. 6. Cf. ‘“‘ Excerpt. Theodot.” 
21, 42, 56-9. 

1« Haer.” 1. 30,2: “Hsse autem hanc et veram et sanctam Keccle- 
siam”. Cf. ibid. 15,3. Regarding the won Church, cf. Tertutn. ‘‘ Adv. 
Valentinianos,” 25, 28, 39; ‘‘ Praescr.” 33; Origen, “Contra Cels.” v1. 
34, 35. “ Excerpt. Theodot.” 13, 17, 26, 33, 40, 41, 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 217 


ception of Catholicism does not date from Irenzus, nor is 
the institution thus described the product of the reaction of 
Christianity against Gnosticism. 


11. 


It remains for us to group around the name of Irenzus 
certain facts that will show that Catholicism is to be found, 
not merely in the books of certain controversialists, but 
chiefly in the life of the Christian community. Of these 
facts, the first is Montanism. 

We must begin by remarking that Montanism is a 
movement which was localized in Phrygia; it was an 1]- 
luminist movement: the Paraclete speaks in the new pro- 
phets, Montanus, Prisca and Maximilla, and announces the 
end of the world; the heavenly Jerusalem 15 shortly to appear 
in the clouds, and come down to Phrygia, in a plain near 
Pepuza. Large crowds of Christians, both in Phrygia and 
in Asia, come eagerly to Pepuza, to hear the Paraclete. 
The memory of those prophecies will continue for many 
years to agitate the land of Phrygia: even in the time of 
St. Epiphanius, there were still some ‘‘ Cataphrygians,” and 
a local worship, of a most eccentric kind, which, every year, 
brought to Pepuza many pilgrims. 

We must observe in the second place that, in so far as 
it is a kind of prophetic reawakening, Montanism is not an 
unexpected phenomenon. The belief in the persistency of 
prophetical charisms within the Church was in no way ille- 
gitimate: Christians were on their guard against false pro- 
phets, it is true, but they believed in prophets, and were 
convinced that true prophets were able to speak under the 
genuine inspiration of the Divine Spirit! The “ extra- 
ordinary ways” have always been part of God’s action in 
His Church. 


‘See in H. Wernet, ‘‘ Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister ” 
(Freiburg, 1899), p. 71 and foll., an attempt at classifying the operations 
ascribed to the Spirit, during the post-apostolic age and during the 
second century. This work has at least the merit of showing the con- 
tinuance of the action of the Spirit and of the “extraordinary ways” 
in the Christian community, before the rise of Montanism. The sub- 
ject deserves to be taken up, 


218 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hermas was, in his way, a prophet; he relates the 
allegorical visions he beholds, and the words he hears from 
the Lord and from the Angels. In one of his visions, he 
sees men sitting on a bench, and one man alone sitting on 
a chair: the former are some of the faithful; the latter is 
a pseudo-prophet, who has no share in the power of the 
Divine Spirit, a magician filled with the spirit of the devil. 
Now this pseudo-prophet is not, as one might be tempted to 
think, a Gnostic teacher: he is a wandering Christian, an 
alms-collector, a half-witted impostor! Nevertheless he 
deceives the good souls whom the ‘‘ Didaché” had already 
warned against these suspicious mendicants: ‘‘ How, then, 
Lord,” Hermas asks, ‘‘ will a man know how to distinguish 
the true prophet from the false prophet?” The Lord an- 
swers: ‘You will recognize the man who has the Divine 
Spirit by his conduct”. The genuine prophet does not 
answer when he is questioned; he speaks when God wills 
it. When he who has the spirit of God comes into the 
assembly of the just who have the faith of the Spirit of 
God, and when all pray the Lord together, then it is that 
the angel of the prophetic Spirit that stands by him fills 
this man, who then speaks to the assembly of the brethren 
according as the Lord wills.2, Hermas writes before the rise 
of Montanism in Phrygia, and therefore cannot allude here 
to the Montanist prophets. 


1 ἐς Mandat. x1.” 1-4. Compare Celsus in ‘‘ Contra Celsum,” viz. 9. 

2 Ibid. 7-9. These last words of the ‘‘ Shepherd” have been 
found in one of the ‘‘Oxyrhynchus Papyri” (Part I, London, 1898) 
of GRENFELL and Hunt, accompanied with the following remark : To yap 
προφητικὸν πνεῦμα TO σωματεῖόν ἐστιν τῆς προφητικῆς τάξεως, ὅ ἐστιν TO σῶμα 
τῆς σαρκὸς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τὸ μιγὲν τῇ ἀνθρωπότητι διὰ Μαρίας. The 
προφητικὴ τάξις or ordo propheticus is the human body of Jesus Christ ; 
the prophetic Spirit is the σωματεῖον or essence of the προφητικὴ τάξις. 
Harnack considers this papyrus to be a remnant of a book or prophecy 
(of Melito ?) and the προφητικὴ τάξις to be a kind of ordo propheticus 
distinct from what St. Cyprian calls ordo sacerdotalis. See ‘‘ Sitzungs- 
berichte ”’ of the Berlin Academy, 1898, pp. 516-20, and De LasrioLie 
“Τὰ polemique antimontaniste,” in ‘ Revue d’hist. et de litt. relig.” 1906, 
pp. 104-5. From this it would follow that the Pneumatics or Spirituals, 
are the true body of Christ. Later on we shall find in Origen an echo of 
this teaching, which shows how Christians even then were uncertain as 
to the relations between the Church and the Spirit. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 219 


St. Justin speaks of prophetic charisms as of a Divine 
gift which is continued in the Church, at a time when for 
long past the Jews have ceased to have any prophets.' 

On the authority of a venerable presbyter whom he 
does not name, St. Ireneus denounces as false prophets 
those who are bold and unrestrained. Evidently Ireneus 
judges prophecy just as Hermas did, and his criterion is 
the same, viz. chiefly moral.2. ‘‘ We hear many brethren 
in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through 
the Spirit of God speak all kinds of languages, and bring 
to light for the general benefit the hidden things of men, 
and declare the mysteries of God.”*? These, he goes on 
to say, are called by the Apostle ‘‘ spiritual men,” for ‘‘ they 
partake of the Spirit, the Spirit alone, and are not moved by 
the fraud of the flesh”.* Irenzus speaks as though these 
prophets were his contemporaries.° 

Bishops, then, were not uneasy at the continuation of 
prophetical charisms. As in the time of St. Paul, a prophet 
was judged first by his holiness of life, and then—but just 
as much—by his submission to the hierarchy. Recall the 
respect shown by Hermas for the Roman presbyters. It 
was no novelty the Montanists proclaimed when they said: 
‘“‘There must be charisms in the Church, and these must 
be received”. The novelty of the Montanists lay in their 
claiming to impose their own peculiar revelations as a supple- 


1“ Dialog.” Lxxxm. 1. 2“ Haor:? 1.13, 5-4. 3 Ibid. v. 6, 1. 

4 [bid. cf. Psrupo-CLEeMEntT, ‘‘ De virginit.” 1. 11. Garus quoted by 
Evusss. “Ἢ. E.” 11. 28, 2, and 31, 4. 

> For an instance of this, see what Irenzeus says of the confessor Attalus 
and of his revelations, in the letter of the Lyonnese martyrs. St. 
Ignatius too has supernatural revelations. The Alexandrian Apelles, one 
of Marcion’s disciples at Rome, publishes a book containing the φανερώσεις, 
i.e. the visions of a Roman prophetess, called Philumena. ‘‘ Philosophou- 
mena,” x. 20. At the time of Pope Callistus, the Syrian Alcibiades 
circulates at Rome the so-called book of Elchasai, which seems to be a sort 
of counterpart of the ‘‘ Shepherd ” of Hermas, and claims to be a revela- 
tion that was given in the third year of Trajan (an. 100). ‘‘ Philosophou- 
mena,” 1x. 13. 

ὁ Kprpu. ‘‘ Haer.” xvi 2. In this chapter (xiviu. 1-13) Epiphanius 
draws his information from a Roman document, of the time of Pope 
Callistus, and according to some (Voret, Rotrrs), the work of St. 
Hippolytus. 


220 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


ment to the deposit of faith, and in their striving to obtain 
credit for them by means of suspicious ecstasies and con- 
vulsions. 

The author referred to as the Anonymous Antimon- 
tanist of Kusebius (an author who wrote about the years 
192-3) describes the raptures of Montanus in these terms: 
‘‘ Agitated by the spirits suddenly he became as one pos- 
sessed and seized with a false ecstasy, and in his transports 
took to uttering inarticulate sounds and strange words, and 
to prophesy in a manner contrary to the constant custom 
of the Church handed down by tradition from the beginning. 
. . . The devil stirred up besides two women, and filled 
them with the spirit of lies, so that they talked unintelligibly, 
irrationally, and extravagantly, like the person already 
mentioned.”! By these transports, in which the so-called 
prophet lost consciousness and spoke as though he were the 
Spirit itself,? the Phrygian fanatics tended far more to dis- 
credit every kind of prophetic charism, than to obtain credit 
for their own prophecy. The way of the Spirit as it had 
been ‘‘handed down by tradition from the beginning”’ was 
not recognizable in those phenomena. 

Hence from the very beginning Montanism was re- 
garded with too much suspicion by the good sense of most of 
the faithful, for 1t to be capable of creating a general crisis 
motived by the antagonism between prophecy and_hier- 
archy.® 

We know of no synods of bishops held in Asia, for the 
purpose of pronouncing on Montanism. All that we know 
is that Serapion, who was Bishop of Antioch from about the 

1 Kuses. ‘‘H. E.” v. 16, 7-9. Renan, ‘‘Marc Auréle,” p. 212: 
‘* There was mixed with it also an orgiastic or corybantic element, peculiar 
to the country, and entirely foreign to the orderly methods of ecclesiastical 
prophecy, which were already subject to a tradition.” One cannot with- 
out a smile find this same writer saying a little before ‘‘ Mediocrity 
founded authority. Catholicism began. . . . This was the first victory 
of the Episcopate, and perhaps the most important, for it was obtained 
over a sincere piety ”’. 

“See the oracles quoted by EprpHan. xuvuit. 4. 

3 Kusges. ‘‘H. KE.” v. 16, 17, quotes an oracle of Maximilla, which 
attests perhaps a spontaneous reaction brought on by her prophetism : 
“51 am driven away from the sheep like a wolf. I am not a wolf. Iam 
word and spirit and power.” 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. TREN “US 221 


year 190 to about the year 211, declares that ‘“‘the new 
prophecy is rejected by all the brotherhood throughout the 
world” ;1 and that in confirmation of his words, he quotes 
a writing against the Montanists, composed by Apollinaris, 
Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, and some letters of different 
bishops, two of whom belong to Thracia. 

All Christendom arrayed itself silently against Montanism, 
in a reaction which was spontaneous and in which charity 
lost nothing. Witness the letter of the Lyonnese ‘“‘to the 
brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, who hold the same 
faith,” in the year 177. ‘‘It was at the time,” says Huse- 
bius, ‘‘when the followers of Montanus, Alcibiades, and 
Theodotus in Phrygia were first giving circulation to their 
opinions on prophecy”? . . . and as dissension arose con- 
cerning them, the brethren in Gaul expressed their own 
prudent and most orthodox judgment’ in the form of 
several letters sent by the martyrs who were still in prison, 
‘“‘to the brethren throughout Asia and Phrygia, and also to 
Eleutherius, who was then Bishop of Rome, to procure the 
peace of the Churches ’’.® 

From the fact that Eusebius, who had read these letters, 
calls the judgment they passed on Montanism a “‘ prudent 
and most orthodox judgment,” we may infer that it fully 
agreed with the opinion that prevailed at Rome and in all 
Christendom. The decision that had to be taken was com- 
plex: the principle of the supernatural working of the Spirit 
had to be safe-guarded ; but it had also to be properly defined. 

Christians turned their eyes towards Rome. Is it not 
to Rome, asks Harnack, that Irenzeus addresses the expres- 
sion of his views about the ‘‘new prophecy”? And is it 
not to Rome that Praxeas comes from Asia, to lodge a protest 
against the representations of Irenzeus?* Again we must 


1 Kuses. “Ἢ. KE.” v.19, 2: παρὰ πάσῃ τῇ ev κόσμῳ ἀδελφότητι. 

2 APOLLONIUS, the anti-Montanist writer, quoted by EvusEBrIuUs 
(“Η. E.” v. 18, 5) relates that a Montanist martyr, Themiso, “‘ dared 
in imitation of the Apostle to write a certain Catholic Epistle,” in which he 
‘*blasphemed against the Lord and the Apostles and the Holy Church ” 
(καθολικήν τινα συνταξάμενος ἐπιστολήν). 

3 Kuses. ‘“‘ H. Ἐπὴν: 3, 4. 

4 Harnack, “‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 489. Bonwertscu, art. ‘‘ Montan- 
ismus,” in Havcx’s ‘‘ Realencykl.” p. 425. 


222 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


observe with Harnack, it was not Roman Montanists who 
were here concerned, but the Montanists of Phrygia and 
Asia who were soliciting recognition for their own persons 
and the principle of the ‘“‘new prophecy”’:. to the judg- 
ment of Rome, then, they must have attached an excep- 
tionally great importance, since they were so anxious to 
win over to their side her potentior principalitas. 

τ τς 

* 

When we come to Tertullian, we shall see Rome decide 
on the question of the prophecy; but before leaving Irenzus 
we have still to speak of another fact that throws much light 
on his ecclesiology, the fact of the Haster controversy. 

Churches disputed among themselves as to the proper 
time for celebrating the feast of Easter. The Churches 
of the province of Asia, proconsular Asia, kept it, like the 
Jews, on the fourteenth of the first Jewish month, i.e. on the 
fourteenth of Nisan, on whatever day of the week that date 
might fall; at Rome, on the contrary, and in most other 
places, it was kept always on the Sunday following the four- 
teenth of Nisan. For the Asiatics, the feast of Easter 
marked the anniversary of Christ’s death ; for the others, the 
anniversary of His resurrection. 

The disagreement was very conspicuous, and the solid- 
arity between the various Churches was such a daily reality 
that the religious authorities were necessarily anxious to do 
away with this disagreement. As we have seen, Polycarp, the 
Bishop of Smyrna, went to Rome to come to an understand- 
ing with Pope Anicetus; but Anicetus did not yield to the 
Asiatics, nor did Polycarp adopt the Roman custom. Even 
after this, however, essential agreement continued to subsist 
between the disputants. In the year 167, the Easter ques- 
tion having arisen at Laodicea, on what precise occasion we 
do not know, Apollinaris, Bishop of Hieraoplis, and Melito, 
Bishop of Sardis, intervened for the purpose of defending the 
Asiatic or Quartodeciman custom ; whence we may infer that 
the Church of Laodicea had been asked to give it up.!. About 
the year 191, Pope Victor, whether of his own accord, or at 
the request of some Church, directly intervened in Asia. 


‘ Laodicea of Phrygia, Sardis and Hierapolis belong to the province 
of Asia. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΙΒΕΝ AUS 223 


He wrote to the Bishop of Ephesus, asking him to 
assemble the Asiatic bishops, in order that they might settle 
the Easter controversy and adopt the universal custom. 
Polycrates wrote back a refusal based on considerations 
which are easily recognizable as the counterpart of those 
probably appealed to by the Bishop of Rome. Rome had 
doubtless made appeal to the Apostolic tradition, and to 
the Apostles Peter and Paul, whose tombs were in her 
territory, and to presbyters like Clement: to this Ephesus 
replied:! ‘‘It is we, who are faithful to tradition, neither 
adding nor taking away from it. For in Asia these great 
bases are resting in peace. . . .”? Among them are Philip, 
one of the twelve Apostles, who is buried at Hierapolis, and 
his two aged virgin daughters, and another daughter, who lived 
in the Holy Spirit, and now rests at Ephesus; and, moreover, 
John, who was both a martyr and a teacher (διδάσκαλος), 
who reclined upon the bosom of the Lord, and being a priest 
wore the πέταλον: ὅ who is buried at Ephesus. And there is 
Polycarp in Smyrna, who was a bishop and a martyr; and 
Thraseas, bishop and martyr of Kumenia, who is buried at 
Smyrna. Why need I mention the bishop and martyr 
Sagaris who is buried at Laodicea, or the blessed Papirius, 
or Melito, the holy eunuch, who lived altogether in the Holy 
Spirits who lies in Sardis? ... All these kept the 
Passover on the fourteenth day, according to the Gospel, 
making no innovation, but following the rule of faith.2 And 
1 also, Polycrates, the least of you all, do according to the 
tradition of my relatives, some of whom have been my 


1 Hoses. “Ἢ. EH.” v. 24, 1-8. 

*In Greek : μεγάλα στοιχεῖα. We have already met this word 
(above, p. 102) which signifies “elements”. It might be better translated 
here by ‘‘ lights ” or “stars ”’. 

’The πέταλον (LXX) is the golden plate worn by Aaron on the fore- 
head : Exod. xxvi. 32, xxix. 6; Lev. vu. 9. In his translation of 
Eusebius, Rufinus writes: ‘‘. . . fuit summus sacerdos et pontificale 
πέταλον gessit ”’. 

*In Greek : τὸν ἐν ἁγίῳ πνέυματι πάντα πολιτευσάμενον. The reader 
will remark that Melito, who, unlike Polycarp, Thraseas and Sagaris, is 
not a martyr, is praised for his continence and as a “‘ spiritual”. 

°In Greek : κατὰ τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, μηδὲν παρεκβαίνοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸν 
κανόνα τῆς πίστεως ἀκολουθοῦντες. 


224 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


masters; for seven of my relatives were bishops; and I am 
the eighth... . 

I, therefore, brethren,! who have lived sixty-five years in 
the Lord, and have met with the brethren throughout the 
world,? and have gone through the whole of Holy Scripture, 
shall not lose my head, for I am not affrighted by terrifying 
words. For those greater than I have said: ‘‘ We ought to 
obey God rather than man.’ I could mention the bishops 
who were present, whom I summoned at your desire, whose 
names, should I write them, would constitute a great multi- 
tude. And they, notwithstanding my littleness, gave their 
adhesion to the letter, knowing that I do not bear my gray 
hairs in vain, but have always governed my life by the Lord 
Jesus.” 

The Bishop of Ephesus and the Asiatic Bishops, then, in 
meeting at Ephesus, complied with the demand of the Bishop 
of Rome. ‘There is in the words of the Bishop of Ephesus 
nothing to suggest that such meetings were a usual occur- 
rence; the contrary rather is implied: Polycrates makes ex- 
cuses for gathering the Bishops of Asia around his humble 
person, by saying that Rome desired that they should be 
assembled. Had the Asiatic Churches been accustomed for a 
long while to meet in a synod, and to form a confederacy 
after the type of the κοινὸν ᾿Ασίας, Polycrates would not have 
used such timid language. And then, Polycrates seems to 
ask, are these meetings called for? The tradition is faith- 
fully preserved, free both from addition and from diminution ; 
Christians believe and live in harmony with the Gospel, with- 
out making any innovations, but following scrupulously what 
the presbyters, the immediate disciples of the Apostles, taught 
and practised—they live “according to the rule of faith,” for 


1 We have not the address of the epistle. Eusebius only says that it 
is sent “to Victor and to the Church of the Romans”. 

2In Greek : συμβεβληκὼς τοῖς ἀπὸ τῆς οἰκουμένης ἀδελφοῖς. Compare 
the inscription of Abercius and the “eos qui sunt undique fideles” of 
Irenzus. 

3 Acts v. 29. 

4V. Cuapor, ‘‘ La province d’Asie,” pp. 529-32, and DE GENOUILLAC, 
pp. 43-6, have well shown (against Monceavx) that there is no real analogy 
between the solidarity of the Churches, even those of the same province, 
and the κοινά or leagues of Asiatic or Syrian cities. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 225 


Christianity is no uncertain and changing religion, it is a 
canon and a canon that is the same everywhere: this Poly- 
crates knows well, for, the Christian faith being spread all 
over the earth, he has been in relation with the brethren of 
the whole world. 

The argument of Polycrates is the same as that of 
Treneus. It is that used by Polycarp before Pope Anicetus : 
viz. the argument of Apostolic tradition, authenticating the 
faith actually held. Unfortunately, there is, in the present 
case, a conflict between two customs both of which are 
authenticated by an Apostolic tradition. Which of the two 
will be victorious Ὁ 

Threats do not suffice to frighten me, the Bishop of 
Ephesus says. From this we may infer that he has been 
called upon to give up the Asiatic custom; and as it seems 
quite clear that Rome alone intervened—since it is Rome 
alone that Ephesus answers and resists—we see the authority 
Rome exercises in this conflict. Renan has said rather ap- 
propriately in reference to this case: ‘‘The Papacy was born 
and well born”. 

About the same time, Pope Victor wrote to all the 
Churches. Whether this step was taken by Rome before 
her intervention at Ephesus or after the latter’s reply, cannot 
be clearly made out from the narrative of Eusebius. Euseb- 
ius found in the official records the letters by which the 
bishops, after meeting together in synods, declare the ecclesi- 
astical faith that connected the feast of Haster with Sunday.! 
If the synod of the Asiatic Bishops was held at Ephesus on 
Pope Victor’s demand, we may suppose that the other synods 
were held in compliance with a similar demand, especially if 
they were to deal with the subject on which the Bishops of 


‘In their synodal epistle, the Bishops of Palestine declare they write, 
so as to be in no wise responsible for the error of those who think wrongly, 
and they affirm that the practice of the Sunday celebration of Haster is a 
‘*tradition which has come to them in succession from the Apostles ” (ἐκ 
διαδοχῆς τῶν ἀποστόλων παράδοσις). At the same time, they beg those ad- 
dressed to send a copy of their epistle to all the Churches : τῆς ἐπιστολῆς 
ἡμῶν πειράθητε κατὰ πᾶσαν ἐκκλησίαν ἀντίγραφα διαπέμψασθαι. We may 
remember the words of Irenzeus: ‘‘ Necesse est omnem convenire 
ecclesiam.” Rome appears here as the acknowledged centre of inter- 
ecclesiastical relations : and this is attested by the Bishops of Palestine, 


15 


226 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Asia had been asked to deliberate, the Sunday celebration of 
Easter. Rome on this occasion gives an order to all the 
bishops of the Christian world, and the order is complied 
with everywhere. 

Eusebius mentions the synodal letter of the bishops of 
the province of Pontus (around Amastris); that of the 
Churches of Osroene (around Kdessa) ; that of the Churches 
of Gaul ~around Lyons); that of the Bishop of Corinth ; 
that of the synod of Palestine (Jerusalem, Caesarea, Tyre 
. .. )3 but he mentions neither Antioch nor Alexandria. 
The synodal epistle of Palestine tells us that the Bishops of 
Palestine observe Haster on Sunday, after the example of 
Alexandria, which every year makes the date of the celebra- 
tion known to them by means of a letter... At no other 
time has cohesion appeared so fully. Catholicity too was 
born, and well born. 

His position strengthened by this cohesion and also by 
the universal acknowledgment of the genuineness and au- 
thority of the Sunday custom, Pope Victor thought it 
necessary to take a still bolder step: viz. that of doing away 
with non-conformism, by separating from the Church all the 
Asiatic Churches.2 Probably he had previously threatened 
the Bishop of Ephesus with this measure as within the range 
of possibility: now that the latter resisted, Victor passed 
from warning to actual deed. He wrote to all the Churches, 
declaring that the brethren of Asia without exception were 
outside the pale of Catholic communion.* 


1 Kuses. “ ΕΠ E.” v. 25. 

2 Ibid. 24,9: Βίκτωρ. . . στηλιτεύει ye διὰ γραμμάτων, ἀκοινωνήτους 
πάντας ἄρδην τοὺς ἐκεῖσε ἀνακηρύττων ἀδελφούς. The verb στηλιτεύω, to 
write down on a stele, designates the public act of proscription. 

9 Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 489, remarks that it is a ques- 
tion, not merely of the communion of the Roman Church, but of the 
communion of the Catholic Church. Im fact, how could we account 
for the remonstrances of Trenzeus and of the other great bishops, were 
this the case of arupture between Rome only and Christian Asia? Pope 
Victor acted about the year 190, just as Pope Stephen did some sixty years 
later: this Eusebius clearly realized (v. 24, 9): Victor, he says, attempts 
to separate at once all the Churches of Asia from the common unity (τῆς 
κοινῆς ἑνώσεως), and by letters declares them cut off (ἀκοινωνήτους). He 
attempts (πειρᾶται) : which means that he asks all the Churches to associ- 
ate themselves to the excommunication he pronounces, 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. ΤΕΝ AUS 227 


As Eusebius relates, this measure did not please all the 
bishops, from which we may reasonably conjecture that it 
did please some of them, and obtain their approval. But 
there were also found other bishops who took exception to 
the severity of the Bishop of Rome and reminded him of 
peace, union, and charity ; there were most emphatic protests 
of which Eusebius saw the text itself. When we come to 
the third century, we shall find that, then too, such remon- 
strances were admissible in the Christian community. 
Trenzus sent to Victor a letter, of which a celebrated frag- 
ment has been preserved by Eusebius: in this document the 
Bishop of Lyons represents to the Bishop of Rome that the 
observance of the Easter solemnity on Sunday is not a custom 
of such importance that refusal to conform to it should be 
regarded as a reason sufficient to justify expelling any one 
body of Christians. He adds that Victor’s predecessors had 
taken this view of the matter, judging that “‘ both those who 
observed and those who did not, were in agreement with the 
whole Church”’.'' Irenzus wrote in the same sense to most 
of the bishops, and ultimately won universal assent. Rome 
had gained her point on the question of principle, and did 
not insist on her disciplinary measure. 

But how remarkable it is that, about the year 190, the 
Bishop of Rome should excommunicate, in a kind of peremp- 
tory edict, the Churches of the provinces of Asia, Churches 
Apostolic and venerable, with the Bishop of Ephesus for 
their spokesman! The Bishop of Rome condemns their 
observance of Haster as a usage that is against the Canon 
of the Apostolic faith, and he cuts them off, not from the 
Roman, but from the Catholic communion. He is conscious, 
then, that such a sentence on his part is legitimate. Iren- 


1H. EB.” v. 24, 18: πάσης τῆς ἐκκλησίας εἰρήνην ἐχόντων καὶ τῶν 
τηρούντων καὶ τῶν μὴ τηρούντων. Here again Irenzeus does not use the 
word “catholic”. On the other hand, we find it used with remarkable 
insistence in the Canon of Muratori, a Roman document of the period 
190-200. “‘Una per omnem orbem terrae ecclesia diffusa esse dinoscitur 

” The ‘‘ Pastoral Epistles” ‘in honorem ecclesiae catholicae, in 
ordinationem ecclesiasticae disciplinae, sanctificatae sunt”. A certain 
epistle, wrongly ascribed to Paul, and actually composed by the Marcion- 
ites, “in catholicam ecclesiam recipi non potest”. Jude and 1-2 John, 
“in catholica habentur”. Zann, “ Grundriss,” pp. 75-9, 


10} 


228 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


cus protests against the excommunication of the Asiatics, it 
is true, but he does not dream of questioning Victor’s power 
to pronounce this excommunication. ‘‘ What term are we 
to use if we are forbidden to designate as «Head of the 
Church’ one who is the depositary of such authority?” 1 


* * 
* 


In this exposition, we have not gone beyond the age of 
Trenzeus: nor do we need to go beyond it, or follow the de- 
velopment of Christianity down to the second half of the 
third century, merely to prove that—within the boundaries 
of the Empire, and apart from any Judeo-Christian com- 
munities that may still exist here and there—“ Christianity 
has an undivided history’’.? It is acknowledged that it has 
reached by this time a form of government common to all 
the Churches, and to that solidarity between all the Churches 
which is, we are told, ‘‘ Catholicism as we conceive of it 
to-day ’’. 

Yet those who make this acknowledgment assume to- 
wards us, Catholics of to-day, a triumphant attitude, and 
exclaim: What you look upon as the providential develop- 
ment of principles essentially inherent in Christianity, is 
only a secularizing of Christianity, its adaptation to the life 
of the Empire, a Christian imperialism: ‘‘ Roman,” politi- 
cally understood, is truly synonymous with ‘ Catholic,” and 
the best proof of this is furnished by the fact that, about the 
year 190, the Roman Church had definitively acquired all 
the elements that are fundamental in Catholicism. Has 
she not her rule of faith—the Apostles’ Creed? Has she not 
a definite and settled canon of the New Testament? Has 
she not, the first of all the Churches, drawn up the list of 
her bishops, reaching back to the Apostles? Do not the 
dispersed Churches communicate with one another through 
the medium of Rome? And has not the Church of Rome 
become the rule for all the Churches, precisely because she 
is at Rome ? 

This imperialist conception of Catholicism would be very 
specious, were it not open to an objection the gravity of 


1 DucHEsne, ‘* Eglises Séparées,” p. 144. 
2 HaRnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. 14, p. 480, 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 229 


which Harnack has not concealed, viz.: that the develop- 
ment effected by the Roman Church within herself took 
place simultaneously in the Churches of all the provinces: 
in some provinces reaching its term sooner than at Rome ; 
in others, later. 

Moreover, even as early as the time of the Haster contro- 
versy, there are Churches beyond the boundaries of the Empire, 
in the Kingdom of Edessa; and, the King of Hdessa being a 
Christian, Christianity is there for the first time in history a 
State religion. And yet, what is said of the Churches that 
are in Gaul is said also of the Churches that are in Osroene. 
Though they are Syriac in language, they hold epistolary 
relations with the Bishop of Rome, they place in his hands 
the official attestation of their Easter custom, which is the 
same as that followed in Palestine, in Syria, and at Rome. 
The Syriac Catholicism of the kingdom of Edessa proves 
that Catholicism is not mere ‘* Roman-ism”’ (romanitas).1 

To the hypothesis of the rise of Catholicism at the 


1 Kuses. “Η. E.” v. 23, 3. Burxrrz, ‘‘ Early Christianity outside 
the Roman Empire ” (Cambridge, 1899), p. 11. The kingdom of Edessa 
was not made a part of the Roman province of Mesopotamia till the year 
216. Harwnack, “‘ Mission,” vol. τι. p. 119, contends that the primitive 
Christianity of Edessa is represented historically by Tatian, ‘‘ the Assyrian,” 
and Bardesanes, of whom neither was ‘‘ Catholic,” but rather, ‘‘ measured 
by the doctrinal standards of the Catholic confederation, both were mild 
heretics’. It is only at the beginning of the third century—we are told— 
that the Church of Edessa accepted Catholic Christianity, by receiving 
from Serapion, Bishop of Antioch, (190-211), a Bishop, named Palut, who 
thus became the first Catholic Bishop of Hdessa, but not its first Bishop. 
To this we may reply that Tatian is more of a Greek, and that the theatre 
of his literary activity was first Rome, and then Antioch (BARDENHEWER, 
vol. 1. p. 245). Edessa and Syriac Christianity are indebted to him for 
the ‘‘ Diatessaron,” which Catholics received without reluctance (HaRNACK, 
loc. cit.). As to Bardesanes, we cannot set aside the testimony of HusEs- 
tus (“ H. EK.” rv. 30), who represents him as a Valentinian who had re- 
tracted his erroneous views, and as a controversialist who opposed Mar- 
cionism and the other heresies. Eusebius relates also that the writings of 
Bardesanes were translated into Greek. In the eyes of Eusebius Bar- 
desanes does not seem to have been more of a heretic than Origen, and 
this was doubtless the common impression until the time of St. Ephrem 
and St. Epiphanius. Besides, neither Bardesanes, nor Tatian held the 
episcopal dignity in Osroene.—Cf. Trxmront, ‘‘ Les Origines de 1’Eglise 
d’Edesse ” (Paris, 1888), pp. 9-19. 


230 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


centre of the Kmpire and of its expansion through the 
whole Empire by way of conquest, we oppose then the fact 
that the constitutive elements of Catholicism are found 
everywhere throughout Christendom, and that, in proportion 
as historical examination can observe it, their development 
is everywhere spontaneous, not forced on from without. 
The only recorded case of compulsion is that of Pope 
Victor’s endeavour to force conformity on the Asiatic 
Churches in the observance of Easter, and, as a matter of 
fact, the Churches of Asia did not at the time yield to the 
constraint, although gradually and silently they came over 
to the Catholic practice. 

This is the illuminating phenomenon: the symbol of 
faith, the episcopate, the canon of the New Testament, the 
Roman primacy—institutions which are represented as so 
many coups d’état secretly perpetrated by the Roman Church 
—appear to the historian as principles laid down from the 
first and developing with the continuity and harmony char- 
acteristic of the growth of an organism, which, once it is 
created, grows and expands according to its law. 


Excursus C. 


Marcionism and Catholicism. 


‘““The Syrian charlatans ceased not to propagate their 
oriental Gnosticism, with its strangely-named sons and the 
Semitic glitter of its magic. In Alexandria subtle spirits 
tricked out these absurdities in philosophic garb to suit the 
local taste. But neither achieved more than the foundation 
of some lodges of initiates of higher or lower degree. Mean- 
time, a man arose who set himself to extract from this 
jargon a few simple notions in harmony with those of or- 
dinary men, as the basis for a religion which should be 
Christian, of course, but new, anti-Jewish, and dualist; and 
should no longer find expression in secret confraternities, 
but ina Church. This man was Marcion.’’! 

Marcion was born at Sinope, a port on the Black 
Sea. He was the son of a bishop and possessed a hand- 


1 DucueEsnE, ‘‘ Histoire Ancienne,” t. I, p. 182. 


se “- 


i 
Ι 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IRENAUS 231 


some fortune. According to a narrative, borrowed probably 
from St. Hippolytus, he was excommunicated at Sinope for 
seducing a young girl. ‘‘ Marcion, ponticus genere, episcopi 
jilius, propter stuprum cuiusdam virginis ab ecclesiae com- 
municatione abiectus.! Mgr. Duchesne remarks on this 
that neither St. Ireneus, nor Tertullian, neither of whom 
was very tender towards Marcion, seems to be aware of 
this imputation, which, therefore, is hardly probable. We 
may conjecture then that the story is a kind of anticipation 
of Marcion’s heresy? The virgin defiled by Marcion was the 
Ecclesia virgo. 

On leaving Sinope, Marcion went to Rome: he was one 
of those many Christians whom Rome drew to herself, be- 
cause she was a unique centre, alike for the upholders of the 
tradition and for agitators. 

It is not very probable that on his way to Rome he passed 
through the city of Smyrna, and that it was at this time that 
he had the interview with Polycarp recorded by St. Irenzeus : 
when Marcion asked the venerable old Bishop if he recog- 
nized him, and Polycarp is reported to have replied: “1 
recognize the first-born of Satan’’.? Marcion would have 
been, already, were the story true of that time, an open 
heretic, and it would be hard to understand his receiving at 
Rome the kind welcome we are told he did. We cannot 
suppose that Rome was either unacquainted with the feel- 
ings of the Church of Smyrna or—which is still more 
improbabie—was incautious as regards errors that filled 
Polycarp with indignation. It is more probable that Mar- 
cion and Polycarp met at Rome, towards the years 154-5, 
when the latter came to visit Anicetus. 

Marcion arrived at Rome at the time when Valentinus 
also was there; both, Tertullian affirms, were as yet Catho- 
lics: ‘‘ Constat illos ... in Catholicae primo doctrinam 
credidisse apud ecclesiam romanensem, sub episcopatu Eleu- 
ther benedicti, donec ob inquietam semper [corum] ewrio- 
sitatem, qua fratres quoque vitiabant, semel et wterum 
evectt.”* Marcion professed then the teaching of the 

'(Pseupo) TeRTULLIAN, ‘‘ Praesc.” 51. EprpHan. ‘‘ Haer.” xxi. 1. 

“Tren. ‘‘ Haer.” τη. 3. 


*TertuLt. “ Praescr.” 30. Together with the ‘‘ Muratorianum ” 
quoted above (p. 227), this text of Tertullian is the oldest witness we 


232 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


‘“‘Catholica”” and he belonged to that ‘‘Catholica” in the 
ranks of the Roman Church. MHe even presented the 
Roman Church with a sum of 200,000 sesterces, which it 
gave back to him on the day he was excommunicated. 
Later on Tertullian will emphasize the fact that Marcion 
was at first, and in the strictest sense, a Catholic, the better 
to show that he changed when becoming a heretic: ‘‘ Mar- 
ction Deum quem wnvenerat extincto lumine fidet suae 
amisit: non negabunt diserpuli eius primam illius fidem 
nobiscum futsse, upsius litteris testibus”:? words which 
allude to a written profession of faith, given by Marcion in 
the form of a letter to the authorities of the Roman Church, 
which from the first probably was somewhat uneasy about 
the purity of his faith. 

Marcion broke with the Roman Church in the year 144. 
This rupture must be understood of a sentence of excom- 
munication pronounced by the Roman Church, and even, it 
seems, of a double sentence: one by which he was called 
upon to recant his errors; the other, by which he was cast 
out “in perpetuum discidium”: the same procedure was 
pursued in Rome, at the same time, against Valentinus.’ 
From this we may infer that, in the year 144, the authorities 
of the Roman Church were not taken unawares in presence 
of such doctrinal errors as those of Valentinus and Marcion, 
and that, to suppress these errors, they had not to resort to 
an hitherto unused procedure. 

The novelty of Marcionism, when once it was cast out 
from the Catholic Church, lay in its constituting itself in 
churches: the Donatists in the fourth century, and the 
Novatians in the third, will follow the same policy: the 


have to the use of the word Catholica as a substantive synonymous with 
Ecclesia catholica. This use does not appear among the Greeks ; among 
the Latins it ceases after the seventh century. It has been found 240 
times in the works of St. Augustine, who opposes the ‘‘ Catholica” to 
the ‘‘ pars Donati,” the Donatist schism (cf. Dom Rorrmanner, ‘‘ Catho- 
lica,”’ in the “‘ Revue bénédictine,” 1900, pp. 1-9). 

1TgRTULL. ‘‘ Praescr.” 30. Two hundred thousand sesterces are 
equivalent to about $8000 or $10,000 (£1600 or £2000). 

2 Adv. Marcion.” 1. 1. 

3“ Praescr.” 30. As to the date, ‘‘ Adv. Marcion.” τ. 19, and Kriasr, 
art. ‘‘ Marcion,” p. 268, in Havucx’s “‘ Realencykl.” 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. TREN AUS 233 


Marcionites were the first to adopt it. In this they differ 
from the Gnostic schools :! the Valentinians, for instance, are 
characterised by Tertullian as a ‘‘ frequentissimum plane col- 
legium wnter haereticos”.2 Tertullian writes collegiwm. In 
another passage, he speaks of heretics in the following re- 
markable terms, every one of which expresses, by way of 
contrast, a special attribute of the Church: “ Plerique nec 
ecclesias habent, sine matre, sine sede, οὐδὲ fide, extorres, sine 
lare vagantur ; ᾿ ὃ but this description does not apply to the 
Marcionites: ‘‘ Facvunt favos et vespae, faciunt ecclesias et 
Marcionitae,” says Tertullian.‘ 

It is most interesting to observe that Marcionism starts 
from Rome as from a centre of propagandism, and that, less 
than half a century later, it has spread through the whole Em- 
pire, so great evidently were at that time the facilities for such 
an expansion of ideas and of sects: the ‘“‘ great Church ’’ must 
have been most closely united and most solidly founded, to 
remain stable in the midst of that quicksand. In fact, less 
than ten years after the rupture between Marcion and the 
oman Church, St. Justin in his first Apology (in the year 
150 or very soon after) says: ‘‘A certain Marcion, of Pontus, 
is even now teaching his disciples to believe in another God 


Clement of Al. cites a ‘‘homily” of Valentinus, ‘‘Stromat.” Iv. 
13 (‘‘P. G.” vol. vi. p. 1296) and vi. 6 (vol. rx. p. 276). In the 
latter quotation, Valentinus speaks of ‘‘the Church of God,” which he 
calls ‘‘the people of the Beloved, the people loved [of Christ] and loving 
Him”. The homily was entitled Περὶ φίλων, ‘On Friends”. The word 
φίλοι was often used to designate the members of the same philosophical 
school: Valentinus probably took it in that sense. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” 
vol. 1. p. 354. 

2° Ady. Valent.” 1. See St. Ambrose’s Letter XL, 16, on the 
affair of Callinicum (in Osroene), where some monks, molested by the 
Valentinians of the place, burned, in the year 388, the sanctuary of 
the sect. 

3 “* Praescr.” 42. 

4“ Ady. Marcion.” tv. 5: ‘‘Habet plane et illud [Euangelium] ec- 
clesias, sed suas, tam posteras quam adulteras . . . Marcione scilicet 
conditore vel aliquo de Marcionis examine. Faciunt favos,” etc. Clement 
is perhaps alluding to the Marcionites, in a passage where he reproves the 
heretics who reject the prophecies of the Old Testament from ‘‘ their 
Church,” just as naughty children drive away their teacher. ‘‘ Stromat.” 
vir, ΤΟ ΠΡ Ὁ νοοῖ ney. 'b37, A.): 


254 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


greater than the Creator. He, with the assistance of the 
devils, has persuaded many persons of every nation to blas- 
pheme and deny God, the Creator of this universe... . 
Many believe this man to be the only one who possesses the 
truth, and deride us.’”! ‘Towards the end of the second 
century, in almost all the provinces we find the leaders of 
Christian thought engaged in fighting Marcionism: witness 
St. Irenzeus at Lyons, Tertullian at Carthage, the Mura- 
torranum, Hippolytus and Rhodon at Rome, Clement at 
Alexandria, Theophilus at Antioch, Bardesanes at Edessa, 
Dionysius at Corinth, Philip of Gortyna in Crete. At the 
close of the fourth century, St. Epiphanius speaks of 
Marcionism as still existing at Rome and in Italy, in Egypt 
and in Palestine, in Arabia and in Syria, in Cyprus, in the 
Thebaid, in Persia, and elsewhere: during the fifth century 
Theodoret: mentions some villages in his diocese of Cyrus 
that are composed exclusively of Marcionites.” 

In common with Montanism, Novatianism, as well as 
Donatism, Marcionism claims to be a Church more exacting 
than the ‘‘ great Church”’. As early as the end of the second 
century, it claims to have more martyrs than the great 
Church. For Marcion, continency is an absolutely neces- 
sary condition for Christian life and salvation, baptism is only 
for those who renounce matrimony.’ Hence baptism com- 
mits to a hfe of continency any one who receives it, unless 
it be deferred to the approach of death. The Marcionites 
must abstain from meat: fish and vegetables only shall be 
their food, ‘‘ sanctior cibus”’.6 The word sanctitas expresses 
the obligatory state of a Christian, in the system of Mar- 
cion, “‘sanctissimus magister,’ as Tertullian styles him 
ironically.° In short Marcionism takes the course common 


am Aol.” a. 90: 3 Harnack, ‘ Mission,” vol. 11. p. 265. 

3’ Kuses. “Η. E.” v. 16, 21. The testimony is taken from the 
work of the anonymous anti-Montanist, who wrote about the years 192-3. 
For the Montanists also claimed to have more martyrs than any other 
religious organization, and they saw in it ‘‘a sure evidence of the 
power of the prophetic spirit,” which they claimed for their sect. This 
is a primitive form of the argument drawn from the constancy of the 
martyrs. 

4TERTULL. “ Ady. Marcion.’I. 29, and rv. 11. 

5 « Adv. Marcion.” 1. 14. ὁ [bid. τ. 28, 29 and passim. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 235 


to all forms of Puritanism by pretending to be a reaction 
against the laxity of the Church, and to surpass it in moral 
value. 

Marcion is not an enthusiast, a ‘‘ pneumatic,” or, strictly 
speaking, a Gnostic; he is a reformer who sets himself the 
task of dispassionately reforming the existing Church in her 
morals, as we have just seen, and in her faith, as we are 
about to see. 

His method consists in clinging to St. Paul’s teaching, 
which he sets against the teaching of the other Apostles. 
Thus he attacks the authority of the Twelve, whom he 
considers to be prevaricators and dissemblers, condemned by 
St. Paul himself But to repudiate the authority of the 
Apostles (other than Paul) is to undermine the historical and 
dogmatic foundation of the great Church, and this Marcion 
probably realizes ; the Apostles are for him judaizers whom he 
rejects. Tertullian arrays against Marcion the faith and 
the institutions that still endure in the Churches founded by 
Paul, in the Church of Rome founded both by Peter and 
Paul, in the Churches founded by John, from which Marcion 
has himself taken something, since the ordo episcoporum 
was inaugurated by John: now all those Churches, says 
Tertullian, are unanimous against Marcion: ‘‘ Dico apud 
illas, nec solas iam apostolicas, sed apud wniversas quae 
illis de societate sacramentt confoederaniur....”* The 
paradoxical thought of isolating Paul from Peter and from 
the other Apostles is peculiar to Marcion, and on him rests 
the responsibility for the innovation. 

This exclusive and violent Paulinism leads Marcion to a 
kind of Christianity which has for its base the rejection of 
the Old Testament. But for any one to speak of the Old 
Testament is to imply that there is a New Testament. 
Marcion makes the latter consist of the Gospel of St. Luke 
(though mutilated and revised), of the Pauline Epistles (except 
the Pastoral Epistles), and of his own work on the contradic- 
tions between the New and the Old Testament, entitled 
«« Antitheses”. This book “propriwm et principale opus est 
Marcionis nec poterunt negare discipuli evus, quod im summo 

1“ Adv. Marcion.” 1v. 3. Cf. ‘ Praescr.” 22 and 32. 
2“ Adv. Marcion.” tv. 5. 


236 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


instrumento habent, quo denique initiantur et indurantur in 
hance haeresim”.1 The Marcionites have but one testament 
(instrumentum). ‘They use Marcion’s « Antitheses” as a 
book of initiation. Here again Marcion innovates: first, in 
repudiating the Jewish Bible which had always been received 
in the Church without dispute; and secondly, in placing his 
««Antitheses”” on the same footing as one of the Gospels 
and as the Pauline Epistles. Some scholars would have us 
believe that the drawing up a canon of the New Testament 
was also an innovation, and that, before Marcion, the great 
Church had no such canon: I have shown elsewhere that this 
supposition is improbable. Tertullian had already said as 
much when he affirmed that by framing a canon of his own, 
Marcion had set himself up for the censor and reformer of the 
ecclesiastical canon already received: “ Utique non potursset 
[Marcion]| arguere nisi quod wnvenerat.” ὃ 

Just as the Marcionites have an instrumentum, 1.6. au- 
thoritative Scriptures, so they have a rule of faith. We have 
already noted that they have Baptism, the Eucharist, and 
episcopacy ;* and that Marcion’s work is the book quo in- 
itiantur. Marcion’s theodicy consists in opposing the God 
of the Old Testament to the God of the New, the Creator 
to the Father, and in introducing what Tertullian calls 
“ex diversitate sententiarum utriusque testamenti diverst- 
tatem deorum”. In Marcion’s Christology, Christ is 
represented as the manifestation of the good God: “‘ Jmmo, 
inquiunt Marcionitae, Deus noster... per semetipsum 
revelatus est in Christo Iesu . . . Anno XV Trberii, Christus 


1 ἐς Ady. Marcion.” 1. 19. 

2“ Revue biblique,” vol. x11. (1903), pp. 25-6, after Zann, ‘‘ Grund- 
riss,” pp. 27-9. 

3 Adv. Marcion.” 1v. 4: ‘‘ Itaque dum emendat, utrumque confirmat ; 
et nostrum anterius, id emendans quod invenit ; et id posterius, quod de 
nostri emendatione constituens suum.et novum fecit”. Cf. ‘‘ Praescr.” 
30: “51 Marcion Novum Testamentum a Vetere separavit, posterior est 
eo quod separavit, quia separare non posset nisi quod unitum fuit. 
Unitum ergo antequam separaretur, postea separatum, posteriorem 
ostendit separatorem ”’. 

“Must we apply to the Marcionites what Tertullian says in 
‘* Praescr.” 41, about the disorder that prevails in heretical churches ? 
As to episcopacy among the Valentinians, cf. ‘‘ Philosophoumena,”’ vi. 41. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN AUS 237 


Tesus de caelo manare dignatus est, Spiritus salutaris”’. 
No conception, no birth, no infancy: Christ comes down 
from Heaven suddenly, as He will return thither. Docetism 
is the true doctrine; and yet redemption by the cross is 
equally real. But what is all this save a correction of the 
ecclesiastical rule of faith? ‘* Aiwnt enim [Marcionitae] 
Marcionem non tam innovasse regulam .. . quam retro 
adulteratam recurasse.” 1 Tertullian does not fail to re- 
mind Marcion that he began by giving up the Catholic truth 
which he used to hold, as is proved from the letter sent to Rome 
by Marcion himself: ‘“ Quid nune si negaverint Marcionitae 
primam apud nos fidem eius, adversus epistulam quoque 
ipsvus?”? 

Let us recall now, the converging developments by 
which the Ritschlian school explains the formation of Catholic 
Christianity—a definition of Christianity held for Apostolic ; 
a baptismal formulary of faith, accepted as a rule of faith, 
likewise regarded as Apostolic; a collection of Apostolic 
writings, placed on the same level as the Old Testament; a 
monarchical episcopate, everywhere instituted and proclaimed 
to be Apostolic, bishops regarded as the successors of the 
Apostles—all these data are found in Marcionism. 

The conclusion to be drawn from those well-ascertained 
facts is that Marcionism is a Catholicism without a hall-mark.* 

Catholicism was not formed in opposition to Marcion- 
ism, it existed before Marcionism, with the characteristic 
elements we have just mentioned; after seceding from it, 
Marcionism could not make any stand at all nor endure, 
without framing for itself a regula fider, a canon, a mon- 
archical episcopate, all based on the authority of an Apostle ; 


1“ Adv. Marcion.”’ 1. 19-20. 2 Ibid. tv. 4. 

3A “reformed ” Catholicism, Harnack would say, but he has realized 
this feature of Marcionism, a feature which, once admitted, becomes for 
the Ritschlian theory an unanswerable difficulty. ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, 
p. 305: “That Marcion was conscious of being a reformer, and that he 
was recognized to be such in his Church is still not understood, although 
it is clearly involved in the nature of his enterprise and the facts con- 
nected with it”. Again (ibid. p. 340): “In the formation of the Mar- 
cionite Church, we have . . . the attempt to create a close cecumenical 
communion, based solely on religion. ‘The Marcionite Church therefore 
had a founder, the Catholic Church has none,” 


238 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


namely, Paul. Moreover, as Marcionism had to face this 
crushing objection, that, from time immemorial, the great 
Church had rested on another faith, it had to extol Marcion, 
and even equal him with St. Paul, naming after him the 
Christianity which he had reformed, and giving him a 
throne in Heaven at the left hand of αοα. Truly, we have 
in Marcionism ‘‘the attempt to create a close cecumeni- 
cal communion”: but why is this attempt dated, and why 
is it called after Marcion, whilst Catholicism has no date, 
and bears no one’s name? 


Excursus D. 


The End of Judeo-Christianity. 


To be complete, a sketch of the historical development 
of the “great Church” must tell what became of Jewish 
Christianity, of Judeeo-Christianity, as it is called. 

It has been rightly observed that Judseo-Christianity 
is ἃ most inappropriate term, if it is meant to imply that 
the Christianity of the Gentiles had nothing in common 
with Judaism: for first it kept the Old Testament, and 
secondly, though it declared itself freed from the Law by 
the Gospel, it claimed not less confidently to be the true 
Israel, the heir of all the promises, a true Israel from which 
the Jews were by no means excluded, provided they believed 
in Christ Jesus. To oppose Judeo-Christianity to Catholi- 
cism is therefore an historical absurdity ; a point which has 
been very distinctly brought out by the discovery of the 
‘“‘Didaché’”’. The term, Judseo-Christianity, strictly speak- 
ing, applies only to those Christians, born in Judaism, who 
looked upon the Law as still binding, and who therefore 
found themselves engaged in an irreconcilable conflict not 
only with St. Paul, but with all Christianity.” 


1'This was actually done: ‘‘ Alii enim aiunt, hoc quod scriptum est, 
sedere a dextris salvatoris et sinistris, de Paulo et de Marcione dici, quod 


Paulus sedet a dextris, Marcion sedet a sinistris”. Origen, ‘In Luc. 
Homil.” xxv. In the ‘“ Praef. arab. ad Concil. Nic.,” we read that the 
Marcionites call Marcion ‘‘ principem apostolorum”. KRruEGER, p. 273. 


2 Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 310. Cf. Honnicke, ‘‘ Juden- 
christentum,” pp. 367-77. 


—— ψψνταδα αδϑ αι τυ βανν τ ὰὰαθσσν 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. TREN ASUS 239 


Although these Jewish Christians belong to the earliest 
Christian community, and the mother-church, yet, far from 
representing the oldest orthodoxy, they represent the oldest 
error, and far from having ever exercised over the formation 
of Catholicism that decisive influence which Baur ascribed 
to them, they were gradually isolated by Catholicism, and 
reduced to insignificance. 

St. Paul speaks to the Thessalonians of the ‘‘ Churches 
of Judea,” testifying that they have suffered at the hands 
of those Jews who put to death the Lord Jesus, and ‘‘ who 
forbid us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved” 
(1 Thess. τι. 14-16). The Acts of the Apostles tell us of 
Christian communities in Galilee, in Samaria, and on the 
coast. Those ‘‘ Churches of Judea,” praised by St. Paul and 
persecuted by the Jews, were not of the same spirit as the 
Judeo-Christians who opposed the Apostle. Hence, even 
as early as the Apostolic age, two elements are combating 
each other in the ‘‘Churches of Judea”—one judaizing, 
the other universalistic. 

The fact has been often recalled that, when inter- 
preting the number of the elect of Israel, as given by the 
Apocalypse (vil. 4), Origen sets aside the idea that those 
144,000 elect may represent the Judzo-Christians ; to him 
that number seems altogether too high. ‘‘ Origen wrote 
after two centuries of Christianity, and hence his estimate 
would cover five or six generations. He cannot then have 
thought the Judzo-Christians very numerous.”! This would 
be a very small number of Christians for the country that 
had seen the rise of the Gospel, had we not reasons for 
supposing that the ‘‘ Churches of Judea,’ which did not 
come to an end in the disasters of the Jewish wars, had 
become hellenized, long before the time of Origen. 

Eusebius has preserved a list of the former Bishops of 
Jerusalem who he says succeeded one another until the 
revolt of the Jews in the year 132. ‘The first two,” Mer. 
Duchesne writes, ‘‘are James and Simeon, who bring us 
down to A.D. 107; the remaining thirteen Bishops have 
therefore to be got into twenty-five years. This is a large 


1 DucHEsnE, ‘‘ Hist. anc.” t, 1, p. 127, Origen’s text is found in his 
‘Comment, in Ioan,” 1, 1, 


240 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


number. But if we accept the list and the time-limits 
given by Eusebius, the natural explanation is that the list 
includes the Bishops, not only of Pella [where the Church of 
Jerusalem had taken refuge, in the year 70], but of some 
other colonies from the primitive Church of Jerusalem.” ἢ 

Hegesippus, who lived at the same time as Irenzus, re- 
lates that, under Simeon’s episcopate, the Church of Jerusa- 
lem was preyed upon by heresies, which were started by a 
certain Thebutis, ‘“‘because he was not made bishop”? 
This Thebutis brings us back to the time of St. Ignatius of 
Antioch: at Pella as at Antioch, the episcopate, the mon- 
archical episcopate, was in existence at that time. 

About the year 190, at the time of the Easter contro- 
versy, the Bishops of Palestine meet in a synod, at Pope 
Victor’s request: their synodal answer witnesses to the fact 
that they do not follow the Quartodeciman practice, but the 
Sunday practice which was received at Rome and every- 
where else except in Asia. This Palestinian synod is pre- 
sided over by Theophilus, Bishop of Czsarea, and by 
Narcissus, Bishop of Jerusalem, and attended—as we know 
from Kusebius—by Cassius, Bishop of Tyre, and Clarus, Bishop 
of Ptolemais. None of these names are Jewish. In their 
letter to Victor, the Palestinian Bishops state that they are 
in relation with the Church of Alexandria, for every year 
they concert with her as to the determination of the date of 
Haster. And they ask that their letter may be communicated 
by Rome to all Christendom, κατὰ πᾶσαν ἐκκλησίαν Hence, 
at the close of the second century, the ‘‘ Churches of Judea,” 
as well as those of Gaul, are in close union with the ‘‘ Catho- 
lica”’. This conclusion can be confirmed by other and 
more ancient facts. 


' DUCHESNE, op. cit. p. 120. Harwacx, ‘“ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 387. 
HONNICKE, pp. 106-7. As to the part played in those Churches by 
members of the family of Jesus, cf. DucHESNE, ibid. and Knorr, ‘‘ Nacha- 
post. Zeitalter,” pp. 25-8. In this part, nothing reminds us of a 
Califate. 

* Hecesre. ap. Kuses. ‘‘ H. ἘΠ. rv. 22, 5. 

3 Kuses. ‘‘H. E.” v. 23, 25. The same historian, ibid. rv. 11, 2, 
tells us, in connexion with a fact belonging to the years 212-3, of the 
bishops of the churches in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem (HARNACK, 
“* Mission,” vol. 11. p. 85) being convened for the election of the Bishop 
of Jerusalem. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN ASUS 241 


At Pella was born Aristo, who, between the years 
135-175, wrote the famous “‘ Dialogue of Jason and Papis- 
cus,’ after the manner of Justin’s ‘‘ Dialogue with the 
Jew Trypho”’. In Aristo’s dialogue, as in that of Justin, a 
Jew disputes with a Christian about Christianity and finally 
surrenders to his arguments. Was Aristo a Judeo-Christian, 
as Harnack thinks, or a Greek-Christian, as Zahn would 
have it? We cannot say. That he wrote his “‘ Dialogue” 
at Pella, is likewise uncertain. At all events, the ‘‘ Dialogue’ 
was read everywhere in Greek: Celsus attacks it with 
violence ; Origen, who upholds it against the criticisms of 
Celsus, praises it without any restriction, which he would 
not have done had the dialogue disagreed with his 
faith. 

Hegesippus, writes Mgr. Duchesne, ‘‘was himself a 
Judeo-Christian. This was the impression of Eusebius, 
who had read all he wrote; and it is confirmed by his use 
of the Gospel of the Hebrews, by his language which 
abounds in Hebrew words, and by his familiarity with the 
history of the Church of Jerusalem.” But if he was by 
birth a Judeo-Christian or even a Jew, Hegesippus had 
become a thorough Catholic: “he did not feel out of his 
element among the Corinthian or Roman Christians. He 
investigated their episcopal successions, and the way by which 
they preserved primitive traditions. According to him, all 
their customs were in accordance with what the Law, the 
Prophets and the Lord had taught.’ If to this, we add his 
utter dislike for the heretics who ‘‘ divided the unity of the 
Church,” ? we must confess that his are not the sentiments 
of a dissident. 

Were there truly Judeo-Christians dissenting from the 
‘““oreat Church”? Yes, and in two ways. 

There remained groups of Christians, who were Jews by 
birth and Jews by circumcision; and these groups were un- 
able to subsist, save by admitting into their ranks only 
such as were circumcised. As we learn from St. Justin who 


’ 


1QricEN, ‘‘Contra. Cels.” tv. 52. BARDENHEWER, vol. I. p. 
187. 

*Heaesrp. apud Euses, “HH. E.” 1v. 22,5: ἐμέρισαν τὴν ἕνωσιν τῆς 
ἐκκλησίας. 


16 


242 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


had good opportunities of knowing them,' they lived after the 
Jewish fashion. Their propaganda amounted to nothing 
among the Jews, or among the Gentiles either. These 
groups soon found themselves reduced to members who were 
exclusively ‘‘ Hebrews” and whom both their legalism and 
their language kept apart from other men. By the force 
of circumstances, it came to pass that, as they were strangers 
to all that was written in Greek, they were familiar only 
with the Aramzan Gospel, which they had used from time 
immemorial, the ‘‘ Gospel of the Hebrews,” as it was called 
among the Greeks: a Gospel more or less independent of 
the Synoptics, and adapted to the tradition peculiar to these 
« Hebrews’”’. Unlike the groups that bear the name of 
Cerinthus and Carpocrates, these ‘‘ Hebrew” Christians did 
not form a heresy, but a remnant. Their communities be- 
came more and more isolated both from Christianity and 
from Judaism, and they passed into obscurity and disap- 
peared in the beginning of the fifth century.” 

There existed, during the fourth century, another form 
of Judeo-Christianity, not confined to some ‘‘ Hebrew’”’ 
villages of Palestine, but widely spread. It is found at 
Alexandria, for instance, and also at Rome. It was for this 
class of Judeeo-Christians that the Gospel of the Hebrews was 
translated into Greek; it may be too that the Greek Logia, 


1 Justin, “ Dialog.” xiv. 2-5. It is recorded of Septimius Severus that, 
on his way through Palestine in the year 202, he took measures against 
the Jews and against the Christians. Spartian. ‘‘ Sever.” 17: “In 
itinere Palaestinis plurima iura fundavit: Iudaeos fieri sub gravi poena 
vetuit, idem etiam de christianis sanxit”. As far as I know, it has not 
as yet been observed that the said edict is directed against circumcision 
as well ameng the Christians as among the Jews. If this is so, it must 
have had specially in view the Judeo-Christian community of Palestine, 
since, among the Christians, the practice of circumcision was confined to 
Judeo-Christians. 

2 Hprewan. ‘* Haer.” xxrx. 7, and the other texts brought together by 
Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. τι. p. 81 and foll. St. Jerome, ‘‘ Epistule ” 
LXXXIx. speaks of them as an heretical sect opposed to orthodox 
Judaism : ‘Inter Iudaeos haeresis est quae dicitur Minaeorum et a 
Pharisaeis nunc usque damnatur... .” But it may be that here St. 
Jerome was misled by the anathema against heretics, Minim, contained 
in the daily prayer of the Jews, the Shmone Esre. Lacranex, ‘‘ Messian- 
isme,” p. 294. H6NNICKE, p. 386. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN ASUS 243 


found within these last years in Egypt belonged to it. Sym- 
machus, who in the time of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) 
translated into Greek the Hebrew books of the Old Testa- 
ment, was a native of Samaria and a Judeo-Christian. 
He published a commentary on the ‘‘Gospel of the 
Hebrews,’ in which he endeavoured to justify the fea- 
tures in that Gospel which are distinctly judaizing.! This 
Judeo-Christianity is a reaction against Marcionism: we 
know that its adherents rejected all that came from St. 
Paul. On the other hand, it accepted several apocryphal 
writings, the titles of some of which we know—for instance 
the ‘‘ Gospel of the Twelve Apostles,’? and those Πέτρου 
κηρύγματα, to which St. Peter’s Epistle to St. James, found 
at the beginning of the ‘“‘Clementine Homilies,’ formed 
the preface.* The details contained in this epistle, as we 
shall see presently, are very interesting. 

The Apostle Peter, who is regarded as the Prince of the 
Apostles, knowing that he is soon to die, sends to James, 


1 Kuses. “Ἢ. E.” νι. 17. BarDENHEWER, vol. I. p. 349. 

2 OrIGEN, ‘‘ In Luc. homil. 1.” 

3’The Clementine apocryphal writings are no longer credited with 
having exercised the influence ascribed to them in the palmy days of Baur 
and of the Ttibingen school. In his ‘‘ Die Pseudoclementinen Homilien und 
Rekognitionen ” (Leipzig, 1904), H. Warvrz arrives at the conclusion, that 
the document on which the ‘‘ Homilies ” and the ‘‘ Recognitions ” are based 
is inspired with a ‘‘syncretist, though catholic’ tendency, and connected 
with Rome: together with the Epistle of Clement which forms its pre- 
face, it was composed between the years 220 and 230. It has various 
sources, notably the Κηρύγματα Πέτρου and the Πράξεις Πέτρου These 
Κηρύγματα Πέτρου (which are quite distinct from the Κήρυγμα Πέτρου) are 
a revised edition, made about the end of the second century or beginning of 
the third, of some older Judzeo-Christian Κηρύγματα Πέτρου, savouring of 
Gnosticism, to which Peter’s letter to James belongs: these latter were 
probably composed at Czesaraea soon after the year 135 in Judeeo-Christian 
surroundings. The ‘‘Homilies” and ‘‘ Recognitions,” in their actual 
state, are subsequent to the Council of Niczea, though previous to the 
year 400. Mgr. Ducuesne, “The Early History of the Church,” pp. 
95-6, accepts the conclusions of Waitz, and believes that in “‘ Recogn.” 
and ‘‘ Hom.” there are traces of the Lucianist or Arian school. Dom 
Cuapman, ‘‘ On the Date of the Clementines,” in the “ Zeitschrift fur die 
Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft,” 1908, pp. 21-34, even thinks that the 
document which is at the basis of the ‘‘ Recogn.”’ and of the ““ Hom.” was 
composed about the year 330, in Palestine or in Syria. 


ΤΟΥ" 


244 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


“bishop of the Holy Church,” the book of his Κηρύγματα, 
i.e. of his teachings. Peter recommends James to make the 
book of the Κηρύγματα known only to men whose worthiness 
has been tried, just as Moses ‘‘ gave his chair to the seventy” 
elders he had chosen. ‘This policy of Moses has had for its 
result, that the Jews have unanimously kept ‘“‘the canon 
of the [Divine] monarchy and of the life [according to the 
Law], and that even now they have no other thoughts than 
those sanctioned by Holy Writ, They are educated in ac- 
cordance with the canon transmitted to them:! they allow 
no one to teach before he has learned how to use the 
Scriptures; for them there is but one God, one law, one 
hope. So must it be with us. 

Hence James is to give Peter’s Κηρύγματα as Moses gave 
his own Κηρύγματα to the seventy: otherwise, the teaching 
will degenerate into mere opinions. ‘This I know not 
in my quality as a prophet, but I see already this evil be- 
ginning to sprout.” For some Gentiles have already rejected 
my teaching, which is in keeping with the Law, whilst others 
strive by means of interpretation so to alter it ‘as to destroy 
the Law’. God forbid! for such a thing were to act 
against God who gave us His Law by Moses, and against 
Our Lord who proclaims that the heavens and the earth 
shall pass away, but that one jot or one tittle shall in no 
wise fall from the Law. But if, while I am still alive, they 
dare thus to make me say what I did not say, what will it 
be after I am gone? 

Let James—Peter insists for the last time—give the 
Κηρύγματα only to trustworthy men, able to keep the Law 
faithfully, able to transmit everywhere the canon of truth,’ 
doing their best to explain everything according to our 
tradition,? not according to their ignorance or their own 
devisings. 

This epistle shows the importance attached by Judxo- 
Christians to the Apostles, above all to Peter. Peter stands 
for Moses, as James for Aaron. Just as Moses chose 
seventy elders from whom the “tradition of the ancients” 


1 4 A θέ 9 ΄σ , 

κατὰ Tov παραδοθέντα αὐτοῖς κανόνα. 

2 πανταχῆ τὸν τῆς ἀληθείας κανόνα παραδῶσιν. 
3 πρὸς τὴν παράδοσιν ἡμῶν. 


THE CATHOLICISM OF ST. IREN ASUS 245 


originates, so also James will entrust the teaching of Peter 
to reliable men who will establish the tradition of the 
Apostles, and that tradition will preserve the canon of truth. 
Woe to those who shall be bold enough to reject the Law, 
and to explain in a different sense the teaching of the 
Apostles! .James, who is a ΠΡ Ἢ of the holy Church, 
must be on the watch. 

The severe expressions areivained in this epistle of St. 
Peter to St. James, whether they are aimed at Marcion or 
at St. Paul, proceed from a conception of the canon of truth, 
of the authority of the Apostolic tradition, of the part of 
episcopacy and of the presbyters, which, whilst striving to 
shield itself behind Moses and the ancients, coincides with 
the ‘‘ Catholic” conception. 


CHAPTER V. 
THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. 


‘Tr is very remarkable,” writes Harnack, ‘“‘that the theory 
of the bishop’s power to determine the truth of ecclesiasti- 
cal Christianity is completely unknown to Clement of 
Alexandria. We have not the slightest evidence that he 
had any conception of a hierarchical antiheretical Church ; 
he seldom mentions the ecclesiastical offices (still less the 
bishops), who do not belong to his conception of the 
Church. . . . On the other hand, according to Clement, the 
true Gnostic has an office like that of the Apostles... . 
Clement could not have expressed himself in this way if the 
office of bishop had at that time been as much esteemed in 
the Alexandrian Church of which he was a presbyter, as it 
was at Rome and in the other Churches of the West. Ac- 
cording to Clement, the Gnostic as a teacher, has the same 
importance as a bishop in the West. . . . Origen, has 
fundamentally the same conception as Clement. But 
numerous passages in his works, and above all his own 
history, show that in his day the episcopate had become 
stronger in Alexandria also, and claimed the same attributes 
and rights as in the West. . . . Clement represents an 
earlier stage, whereas by Origen’s time the transformation 
has been completed. Wherever this happened, the theory 
that the monarchical episcopate was based on Apostolic 
institution was the natural result.” 1 

Clement of Alexandria is a contemporary of Irenzus and 
of Tertullian. Like many other Greek Christians of the 


1 ἐς Tyoomeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 403. Loors, ‘ Leitfaden,” p. 167, adopts the 
theory of Harnack. For a less absolute judgment, cf. Horr and Mayor, 
“‘Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, Book VII” (London, 1902), pp. 
Xxii-xlvii (against Harnack and Harcn). 

246 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 247 


second century, he has travelled a great deal: he has visited 
Italy, Greece, the East, Palestine; he settles down for a 
while, probably about the year 180, at Alexandria, and there 
he resides until the year 202 or 203, when he retires per- 
haps to Jerusalem. Hence, Clement’s ecclesiology does not 
represent that of Alexandria and of the Alexandrians only, 
and his testimony—if it be what Harnack claims it is—would 
also express the mind of Greek Christendom; and yet we 
have seen that the latter, with Dionysius of Corinth and 
Hegesippus, held the common view. 

But Harnack’s judgment in the present instance seems to 
us more marked by tendency than any other: Clement, we 
venture to say, 1s both an orthodox Gnostic and an orthodox 
traditionalist, and, once this dualism is admitted, it becomes 
easy to discover in his traditional orthodoxy the very same 
characteristics as we have found in that of Irenseus; only 
we must first extract them from the intolerable diffuseness 
of his writings which have been preserved, and from the 
scanty information that can be obtained regarding those of 
them which have been lost. 

* * 


* 

Clement’s ‘‘ Hypotyposes,” a work as important as his 
‘“‘ Stromata,’’ was a doctrinal exposition based on the Scrip- 
tures of the Old and the New Testament, including besides, 
as Eusebius tells us, some books the canonicity of which 
is disputed, such as the Epistle of Jude, the Epistle of Bar- 
nabas, the ““ other Catholic Epistles,” the Apocalypse of Peter 
and the Epistle to the Hebrews which Clement ascribes to 
St. Paul. The ‘‘ Hypotyposes” contained, it is thought, a 
defence of the canon of the New Testament: in which 
Clement strove to prove the Apostolic authenticity of the . 
HKpistle to the Hebrews,! and gave an account of the origin 
of the second Gospel which connected it through Mark 
with the Apostle Peter who sanctioned that Gospel with 
his Apostolic authority, “for reading in the Churches”? 
Eusebius observes that Papias uses the same argument. 


ΤΙ ΒΗΒ. {SEES Hs) wee Bat, 

2TIbid. τι. 15, 2. After these declarations, we fail to understand 
how some critics can suggest that Clement was unacquainted with the 
canon of the New Testament (in the sense of Irenzeus, Tertullian, and the 


248 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Clement states that he has these reminiscences con- 
cerning the origin of the New Testament from ‘“‘the tradi- 
“tion of the presbyters of old,” and in giving his authority 
for what he relates concerning the Epistle to the Hebrews 
he uses the formula so dear to Irenzus: ‘“‘as the blessed 
presbyter used to say”’.1 Here we have an indication of 
Clement’s method in these matters of tradition, and of the 
reverence he pays to the sayings of the presbyters. Ac- 
cording to Husebius, Clement says in his work Περὶ τοῦ 
πάσχα that he has been constrained by his hearers to 
write down the traditions gathered from the ancient pres- 
byters, among whom he reckons Melito, Irenszeus, and some 
others.2. Later on, Alexander of Jerusalem will give 
Clement himself the title of ‘“‘blessed presbyter ’’.® 

At the request of Alexander of Jerusalem, Clement 
composed a work, of which the title alone has been pre- 
served: Κανὼν ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἢ πρὸς lovdaifovtas. This 
might seem to be a treatise against the Quartodecimans, 
but Clement had already written a treatise about the Passover, 
Jerusalem had accepted the principle of keeping that feast 
on Sunday, and the Easter-controversy was over when Alex- 
ander had Clement with him at Jerusalem: so many reasons 
for believing that the treatise in question was not directed 
against the Quartodecimans. It was directed then against 
the Judeo-Christians; and from this it may be inferred that 
the ““ ecclesiastical canon ” which it defends is the ecclesias- 


‘* Muratorianum ”), and that not until the time of Origen did Alexandria 
reach the point which Rome had reached some forty years before. The 
discussion (Zahn, Harnack) on the canon of the New Testament as ac- 
cepted by Clement, is summed up by BarDENHEWER, vol. τι. pp. 59-61. 
Cf. Zann, ‘‘Grundriss,” pp. 41-4. The demonstration would be more 
conclusive if the hypothesis of Dom Chapman, who suggests we should 
look upon the ‘‘ Muratorianum ” as a fragment of the ‘‘ Hypotyposes,” 
were accepted. CHapman, ““ L’auteur du canon Muratorien,” in the 
‘Revue bénédictine,” 1904, pp. 240-64. But, to my mind, that view is not 
probable. 

1 Euses. vi. 14, 4. 

* Ibid. vi. 13, 9: ἃς ἔτυχε παρὰ τῶν ἀρχαίων πρεσβυτέρων ἀκηκοὼς 
παραδύσεις. ] 

> Tbid. νι. 11, 6. The sayings ascribed to the presbyters by Irenzeus 
and by others have been collected by various scholars, particularly by 
Funk, “‘ Patres Apostol.” vol, 1. pp. 301-14, 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 249 


tical rule and standard of faith, as demanding, not a literal, 
but a spiritual interpretation of the Sacred Writings.' The 
expression itself, ‘‘ ecclesiastical canon,” already reveals an 
idea of the Church which connects Clement with all the 
presbyters we know of. 

Besides, the idea of ecclesiastical rule or canon is familiar 
to Clement. Some heretics refuse to make use of wine in 
the eucharist, and “‘take for the offerimg bread and water, 
contrary to the canon of the Church’’.® Hence, as regards 
the Sacraments, the canon of the Church must be followed, 
and heretics are condemned by the very fact that they trans- 
gress this canon. Clement then recognizes the antithesis 
between the canon and heresy. Elsewhere he writes: ‘‘We 
must never, as do those who embrace the heresies, do 
violence to the truth or defraud the canon of the Church’’.’ 

What is this ecclesiastical canon? It is, answers 
Clement, ‘‘the concord and harmony of the Law and the 
Prophets [on the one side], and of the Testament delivered ς 
in accordance with the presence of the Lord”’;* in other 
words, to use the well-known trilogy, it is the harmony of the 
Prophets, the Lord and the Apostles: perhaps an allusion to 
the contradictions denounced by Marcion. ‘‘ Liars, then, 
are . . . those who, by forsaking the fundamental doctrines 
reject the Lord, as far as in them lies, and corrupt the true 
teaching of the Lord; who discuss and teach the Scrip- 
tures in a manner unworthy of God and of the Lord: for 
the deposit we have to render to God, according to the 


1 Karrensusou, vol. τι. p. 176. 

3 “9 Stromat.” 1. 10 (Migne, ‘‘P. G.” vol. vit. p. 813): μὴ κατὰ τὸν 
κανόνα τῆς ἐκκλησίας. 

* “ὁ Stromat.” vit. 16 (Ix. 545): οὐ χρή ποτε, καθάπερ οἱ τὰς αἱρέσεις 
μετιόντες ποιοῦσι, μοιχεύειν τὴν ἀλήθειαν οὐδὲ μὴν κλέπτειν τὸν κανόνα τῆς 
ἐκκλησίας. We may recall the rigorous character of the penitential dis- 
cipline against fornication and ‘‘defrauding”. On the fundamental 
purpose of the κανὼν ἐκκλησιαστικός or κανὼν τῆς ἐκκλησίας in Clement’s 
writings, cf. KATTENBUSCH, vol. τ᾿. pp. 110-29. 

***Stromat.” vi. 15 (1x. 349 A): κανὼν δὲ ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἡ συνῳδία 
καὶ ἡ συμφωνία νόμου τε καὶ προφητῶν τῇ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου παρουσίαν 
παραδιδομένη διαθήκῃ. See also ‘‘Stromat.” v1. 11 (809 C), in which the 
** ecclesiastical symphony ” is described as the accord of the Prophets, the 
Apostles and the Gospel. 


250 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


teaching of the Lord by His Apostles, is the understand- 
ing and practice of the religious tradition.”! Preach on 
the housetops,” the Saviour said: 1.6. “‘explain the Scrip- 
tures according to the canon of the truth”. Still more 
accurately: ‘‘{He who wishes to be saved] must believe 

. . the disciples of God, and trust in God, in the 
Prophets, the Gospels, the Apostolic words”.*® The 
““canon of the truth” is the same as “the canon of the 
tradition” or the “‘canon of the Church”’: it is a fixed and 
exclusive doctrine, and not merely the symbol used in the 
baptismal liturgy, which is only a catechetical formula and 
summary of that teaching. 

Clement comments as follows on the narrative of the 
vessel of perfume poured on the Saviour’s feet :— 

“This may be a symbol of the Lord’s teaching, and of 
His passion. For the feet anointed with that fragrant 
ointment signify the divine instruction which travels glori- 
ously to the ends of the earth... . And if I seem not to 
insist too much, the fect of the Lord which were anointed 
with this myrrh are the Apostles who have, according to the 
prophecy of the fragrant unction, recewed the Holy Ghost. 
The Apostles, therefore, who travelled over the world and 
preached the Gospel, are, allegorically, the feet of the Lord.” * 

The preaching of the Gospel to the whole world is then 
the work of the Apostles.’ Prophecy was full of ““ gnosis,” 


τ ἐς Stromat.” vi. 15 (843 B): Wevorai . . . of eis τὰ κυριώτατα παραπίπ- 
Tovres ... ἀποστεροῦντες δὲ τοῦ κυρίου τὴν ἀληθῆ διδασκαλίαν . . . 
Παραθήκη . .. ἡ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου διδασκαλίαν διὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ, 


τῆς θεοσεβοῦς παραδόσεως σύνεσις. 

3 710ϊά. (C): κατὰ τὸν τῆς ἀληθείας κανόνα διασαφοῦντες τὰς γραφάς, 
** Stromat.” 1. 1 (vin. 704 Ο) : κατὰ τὸν τῆς παραδόσεως κανόνα. 

3 Quis div. salv.” 42 (1x. 652 A): προφητείαις, εὐαγγελίοις, λόγοις 
ἀποστολικοῖς. 

4“ Stromat.” 11. 8 (vi. 465). Cf. ““ Stromat.” vu. 12 (1x. 501 Ο). 
The Holy Ghost bestowed on the Apostles, continues to work in the 
Church. If the ‘‘ Excerpta ex scriptis Theodoti” are extracts made by 
Clement intermingled with his remarks, we may consult ‘‘ Excerpt.” 
24 (1x. 672), where the author affirms the presence and working of the 
Spirit in the Church, of that same Spirit which worked through the 
Prophets of the Old Testament. Compare ‘‘ Eclog. prophet.” 23 (1x. 708). 

>Clement quotes often the Κήρυγμα Πέτρου, an apocryphal work 
which, according to some critics, was composed in Egypt in the first 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 251 


of that ‘‘ gnosis,” which was revealed through the Lord to 
the Apostles, ‘‘ James, Peter, John, Paul,’ 1 and which has 
reached us from the Apostles, handed down unwritten, by a 
succession limited to a few individuals.? In these obscure 
words, Clement designates the teaching of presbyters like 
Melito and Irenzeus, or better still of Panteenus and the others 
spoken of at the beginning of the ‘‘Stromata”. ‘ They 
preserved,” he writes, “‘ the tradition of the blessed doctrine 
[of Christ], received directly from the holy Apostles, Peter, 
James, John and Paul.’ ® 

The teaching of the presbyters derives its authority from 
the apostles who have left it as an inheritance that has 
come down to us by succession (kata διαδοχάς). We must 
grant that in this passage it is not, strictly speaking, the 
succession of the bishops in general which is referred to; for, 
unlike Melito and Irenzus, neither Pantanus nor Clement 
himself is a bishop. But Clement justifies the teaching of 
the presbyters—whom he does not distinguish from the 


quarter of the second century. Now this Κήρυγμα had already insisted on 
the fundamental part played by the Apostles: it gave the instructions 
of the Saviour concerning the preaching of the Gospel ; the Apostles were 
told to preach it to Israel first, and to devote twelve years to that work : 
after these twelve years, they were to turn to the Gentile world. 
‘** Stromat.” vi. 5. Clement may have taken from the same source what 
he says of the preaching of the Apostles, of all the Apostles, in Limbo. 
Ibid. 6 (tx. 268 A). At all events it is from this source he borrowed 
the discourse of the risen Saviour to the Twelve. Ibid. (269 C). These 
texts may be found in Doxsscuiirz, “‘ Kerygma Petri,” pp. 22-3. 

1“ Stromat.” vr. 8 (1x. 289 C). 

2 1014. 7 (284 A): ἡ γνῶσις δὲ αὐτή, ἡ κατὰ διαδοχὰς εἰς ὀλίγους καὶ TOV 
ἀποστόλων ἀγράφως παραδοθεῖσα, κατελήλυθεν. Cf. ““ Excerpt. Theodot.” 
66 (1x. 689), and ‘‘ Eclog. prophet.” 59 (728). 

5. ἐς Stromat.” 1. 1 (virt. 700) : τὴν ἀληθῆ τῆς μακαρίας σώζοντες διδασ- 
καλίας παράδοσιν, εὐθὺς ἀπὸ Πέτρου κιτ.λ. ΑΒ to Peter’s primacy over the 
other Apostles, we may recall what Clement writes in the VIIIth book 
of his ‘‘ Hypotyposes”’: ‘‘ Christ is said to have baptized Peter alone ; 
and Peter, Andrew ; and Andrew, James and John ; and they, the rest.” 
“Pp. G.” vol. 1x. col. 745 C (taken from the ‘‘ Spiritual Meadow ’’). 
Elsewhere Clement calls Peter “‘ the chosen, the pre-eminent, the first of 
the disciples (ὁ πρῶτος τῶν μαθητῶν), for whom alone, along with Himself, 
the Saviour paid tribute.” ‘‘ Quis div. salv.” 21. In the book of 
““ Hypotyposes,” Clement thinks he knows that the Cephas St. Paul 
withstood to the face was not the Apostle Peter, but one of the seventy 
disciples. Euszs. “ H. E.” 1. 12, 2. 


252 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


bishops—by the same consideration as Irenzeus, Hegesippus, 
Papias, and Polycarp employed to justify the teaching of the 
bishops and the faith of the churches.! 

The Episcopate, which is distinct from the Apostolate, 
dates back from the Apostles: ‘‘ Peter and James and John, 
after the ascension of our Saviour, even though preferred by our 
Lord, strove not after honour, but chose James the Just, to be 
Bishop of Jerusalem.”? Alluding to a phrase in the Pastoral 
Epistles (1 Tim. 11. 4, 5), Clement writes: ‘‘ Bishops, says 
[St. Paul], must be appointed, who know, after [ruling] 
their own house, how to rule the whole Church;’’? for the 
Church is both ruling and ruled. On one side is the people.‘ 
On the other are the pastors of this people, the ‘‘ heads of 
the Churches,” including under this name of heads both 
bishops and priests: ‘‘ We who preside over the Churches are 
shepherds after the image of the good Shepherd, and you are 
the sheep.” ὃ 

“Such an one is truly a presbyter of the Church, and a 
true minister (deacon) of the will of God, if he do and teach 
what 18 the Lord’s: and he is deemed righteous not as being 
elected by men or because he is a presbyter, but is enrolled in 
the presbyterate because he is righteous. And even if here 
upon earth he be not honoured with the chief seat, he will set 
on the four-and-twenty thrones, judging the people, as John 
says in the Apocalypse. .. . For the order [which we see here 
below] in the Church, of bishops, priests, deacons, is, in my 
opinion, an imitation of the angelic glory, and of that 
economy which, the Scriptures say, awarts those who, follow- 
ing the footsteps of the Apostles, have lived in perfection of 
righteousness according to the Gospel. For these taken up in 


1 As to the ‘‘ presbyters ” in Clement (cf. ‘‘ Eclog. prophet.” 27 (1x. 
712) and 56 (724). 

2(Juoted from the sixth both of the ‘“‘ Hypotyposes,” by Eusss. 
POI Ee ints ly oP 

> Stromat.” m1. 12 (vir. 1180 A): τοῦ ἰδίου οἴκου καὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας 
ἁπάσης προΐστασθαι. Cf. ibid. 18 (1212 B). 

4 Ibid. τ. 1 (vim. 692 B). Cf. ‘‘Stromat.” mr. 12 (vim. 1189 C): 
πρεσβύτερος, διάκονος, λαϊκός. ' 

>“ Peedagog.” 1.6 (vim. 293 D) : εἴτε ποιμένες ἐσμὲν οἱ τῶν ἐκκλησιῶν 
προηγούμενοι, Kar εἰκόνα τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ποιμένος, τὰ δὲ πρόβατα ἡμεῖς (80 
STAEHLIN). SyLBuRG suggests that we should read ὑμεῖς. 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 253 


the clouds, the Apostle writes, will first minister as deacons, ° 
then be classed in the presbyterate, by promotion of glory (for : 
glory differs from glory), till they grow into ὦ perfect man.” ? . 

The absence of distinction which Clement apparently 
leaves between the priests and the bishop is most worthy of 
notice: the presbyteritum is an honour, a glory to which 
they are raised together :* the bishop is the presbyter to 
whom the πρωτοκαθεδρία has been granted. Hlsewhere, 
however, the distinction between the various degrees of the | 
hierarchy is clearly stated. ‘‘Innumerable commands .. . 
are written in the Holy Bible,” says Clement,* ‘‘ appertaining 
to chosen persons, some to presbyters, some to bishops, 
some to deacons, others to widows.” 

In the beautiful story of St. John, found at the end 
of the “‘ Quis dives salvetur,’ the Apostle is represented as 
visiting a Church near Ephesus, which he had probably 
founded. At the head of that Church there is one, and only 
one ‘‘episcopus” to whom the Apostle entrusts the youth 
he has brought to the faith. The bishop instructs the young 
man and finally baptizes him. After the new Christian has 
been perverted and has gone away, John arrives and asks 
what has become of him: “Ὁ bishop, restore to us the 
deposit which I and the Saviour committed to thee in the 
presence of the Church over which thou dost preside”’ (τῆς 
ἐκκλησίας ἧς προκαθέζῃ. All the Churches in Clement’s 
time were certainly organized after the model of that Johan- 
nine Church. 

Baptism imparts the forgiveness of sins and the know- 
ledge of God. The catechesis is the foundation of faith.‘ 


1° Stromat.” νι. 18 (1x. 238): . . . οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἀνθρώπων χειροτονούμενος, 
οὐδ᾽ ὅτι πρεσβύτερος, δίκαιος νομιζόμενος, GAN ὅτι δίκαιος ev πρεσβυτερίῳ 
καταλεγόμενος - κἂν ἐνταῦθα ἐπὶ γῆς πρωτοκαθεδρίᾳ μὴ τιμηθῇ κ-.τ.λ.---οΟὶ ἐνταῦθα 

γόμ γῆς πρ ρίᾳ μὴ τιμηθῇ 
κατὰ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν προκοπαὶ ἐπισκόπων, πρεσβυτέρων, διακόνων, μιμήματα 

ὴ η ρ , πρ ρων, μιμήμ 
3 -“ 
ἀγγελικῆς δόξης κιτ.λ. 

5 Ibid. vir. 1 (tx. 405 A), has the same absence of distinction. 

35 ἐς Peedagog.” 11. 12 (vir. 677 A): ὑποθῆκαι εἰς πρόσωπα ἐκλεκτὰ 
διατείνουσαι, . . . ai μὲν πρεσβυτέροις, ai δὲ ἐπισκόποις, ai δὲ διακόνοις, ἄλλαι 

᾽ μ ρ pats, ? ? 
, - 9, , 

χήραις, περὶ ὧν ἄλλος ἂν εἴη λέγειν καιρός. 

4 Ibid. τ. 6 (vu. 296 A): ἡ πίστις εἰς θεμέλιον ἐκ κατηχήσεως 
συνεστραμμένη. Cf. ““ Kclog. prophet.” 28 (1x. 719): οὐκ ἔστι πιστεῦσαι 
ἄνευ κατηχήσεως. 


254 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Faith is trained by Baptism and by the Holy Ghost. The 
grace of Baptism makes a man entirely different from what 
he was before being baptized! Baptism conferred by the 
heretics is not a true, a legitimate baptism: its waters are 
like those of a river that loses itself in the sea, together 
with all those who give up the solid ground of truth.? 
Hence Baptism is truly a new birth, and there is no legiti- 
mate birth outside the Church, which alone possesses, 
together with the truth, the Holy Spirit. Clement de- 
signates the authentic Christians by this title: ‘‘ those of 
the Church”.? There are martyrs only for them and 
among them. ‘The elect are to be found only within the 
bosom of the Church.* God’s will is creative, and we call it 
the cosmos: but it wills also the salvation of men, and as 
such it is called the Church.° 
* ἢ 
* 
The word Church designates the local Church, properly 
speaking the synaxis, i.e. the gathering of the faithful: 
ecclesia is used in this sense, just as is the word agora.® 
The word Church serves also to designate the number of 
the elect received into Heaven: ‘‘ Yea, O Instructor [and 
Divine Shepherd], lead us [as Thy flock] to Thy holy 
~ mountain the Church, which towers aloft, which is above 
the clouds, which touches heaven.’ This ‘“ heavenly 
Church,” which is unseen and above the earth, is the most 
real of all things;* it contrasts with the Church upon earth 
just as a reality contrasts with its image; in this case the 
image, the shadow, is the visible Church, the Church that is 
here below.® 


1 ** Peedagog.” 1. 6 (vit. 285). 

5. «ἐ Stromat.” τ. 19 (vir. 813 A): τὸ βάπτισμα τὸ αἱρετικὸν οὐκ οἰκεῖον 
καὶ γνήσιον ὕδωρ.---ὁ παρεκτραπεὶς ἐκ τῆς κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν ἑδραιότητος. (These 
words recall 1 Tim. 11. 15.) 

* Ibid. tv. 9 (vir. 1284 B) and 12 (1293 B). 

4“ Peedagog.” 11. 10 (vin. 529 B). 

>Tbid. τ. 6 (vit. 281 B): ὡς τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ ἔργον ἐστι, καὶ 
τοῦτο κόσμος ὀνομάζεται, οὕτω καὶ τὸ βούλημα αὐτοῦ ἀνθρώπων ἐστὶ σωτηρία, 
καὶ τοῦτο ἐκκλησία κέκληται. 

ὁ Ibid. 11. 10 (vim. 512 B) and 111. 11 (657, A). 

7 Thid. τ. 9 (vii. 352 A). ἱ 8 [bid. 11. 1 (vit. 382 A). 

9“Stromat.” rv. 8 (vi. 1277 B): εἰκὼν τῆς οὐρανίου ἐκκλησίας ἡ 
ἐπίγειος. 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 255 


More universal than any philosophy, the word of the 
Divine Master ‘‘ was diffused through the whole world, gaining 
over both Greeks and barbarians, in every people and town, 
bringing in here an entire city, there whole houses, . . . and 
not a few of the philosophers themselves”’.1. Does not Clement 
seem to have in his mind δύ. Ignatius of Antioch, when he 
writes: ‘‘ The altar that is with us here, the terrestrial one, 
is the congregation of those who devote themselves to prayer, 
having as it were one common voice and one mind... . 
The Church truly draws but one breath”.? Universality 
and unity: these are the two aspects under which Clement 
considers the earthly Church; hence he often uses this ex- 
pression: ‘“‘the whole Church”. In the state of marriage, 
the husband is the crown of the wife. ‘‘ And the crown of 
the whole Church is Christ.’’? 

This Church, one and universal, hierarchical and apostolic 
both in origin and teaching, is for Clement the living 
and triumphant antithesis of heresy. Clement quotes from 
the Hpistle to the Ephesians the text in which St. Paul 
expresses his sincere wish that the faithful should not be 
like children carried to and fro by surging waves, tossed 
to and fro by every wind of doctrine. 

“[ Paul] says these things for the edification of the body of 
Christ who ws the head [of the body] and the spouse [of the 
Church], the only one perfect in righteousness : and as for us, 
we are the children, guarding ourselves against the blasts of 
heresies that are filled with infatuation ; not putting our 
trust vn those who teach us otherwise than our fathers [did], 
and being made perfect, when we are the Church, with Christ 
for the head”. 


1 ¢¢ Stromat.” νι. 18 (1x. 400 B). 

2 Ibid. vi. 6 (tx. 444): ἔστι τὸ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν θυσιαστήριον ἐνταῦθα 
TO ἐπίγειον TO ἄθροισμα τῶν ταῖς εὐχαῖς ἀνακειμένων, μίαν ὥσπερ ἔχον φωνὴν 
τὴν κοινὴν καὶ μίαν yrounv.—H σύμπνοια δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας λέγεται 
κυρίως. 

5 ἐς Peedagog.” τι. 8 (vir. 480 B): τῆς συμπάσης ἐκκλησίας στέφανος ὁ 
Χριστός. “Stromat.” τπὼ,ἥ 11 (1173 B): εἴτε 6 καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἡμῶν, εἴτε καὶ 
ἀθρόα ἡ ἐκκλησία. Ib. tv. ὃ (1272 A): πᾶσα ἡ ἐκκλησία. 

4 Ibid. 1. 5 (vit. 269 C): ἐσμὲν ἐκκλησία. Clement states that 
we are perfect, in the order of gnosis, when we are the Church, for there 
is no other perfect gnosis than the ‘‘ ecclesiastical gnosis ”’. 


256 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Elsewhere, commenting on a text of Proverbs, he 
writes as follows :— 

“ He who relies on falsehoods feeds the winds and pursues 
winged birds [Prov. 1x. 12]. I do not think that the Logos 
says this of philosophy . .. but against the heresies. For 
it is added: He forsakes the ways of his own vineyard, and 
loses himself in the tracks of his own lands. Such are 
[the heresies| which desert the Church that is from the begin- 
ning.” } 

In another place, he speaks as follows of the Church 

regarded as the spouse of God :— 
* “2... The wife, re. the Church. She must be pure from 
all the inner thoughts that are contrary to the truth, and 
from all the outer thoughts that assail vt. Imean the followers 
of heresies, who would fain persuade her to become adulter- 
ous and be unfarthful to her only spouse, God Almighty. 
The serpent deceived Eve, Eve who was called life: we at 
least must not transgress the commands, by allowing our- 
selves to be deceived by the active perfidy of heresies.” ” 

Again he writes from a more philosophical point of 
view :— 

““ Now, since there are three states of the soul—ignorance, 
opinion, knowledge—those who are in ignorance wre the 
nations, those in knowledge the true Church, and those in 
opinion the heretics. . . . 

“We have learned that pleasure, which is attributed 
to the nations, is one thing; and wrath, which is supreme 
among the heretical sects, is another; and joy, which is 
characteristic of the Church, another ; and delight, which is 
to be assigned to the true Gnostic, another.” * 

Therefore, when compared with heresies, the Church is 
the lawful, the chaste, the faithful spouse: heresies assail 
her from the outside. The Church is the truth: heresies 
are the opinion that changes like the wind. 


1 Stromat.” 1. 19 (vit. 812 C): τὰς αἱρέσεις ἐπιρραπίζει. . . αὗται 
δέ εἰσιν ai τὴν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀπολείπουσαι ἐκκλησίαν. 

2 Ibid. 11. 12 (vu. 1180 B): τῶν τε ἔξωθεν πειραζόντων, τουτέστι 
τῶν τὰς αἱρέσεις μετιόντων. 

5 Ibid. vit. 16 (rx. 540): οἱ ἐν τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ ἡ ἐκκλησία ἡ ἀληθής, 
οἱ δὲ ἐν οἰήσει οἱ κατὰ τὰς αἱρέσεις. 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 257 


“ Ts the demonstration needed? It is necessary to come 
to the questions [raised by heretics], and to demonstrate 
from the Scriptures themselves how the heresies failed, and 
how in the truth alone and in the ancient Church is both the 
most exact gnosis and the truly best ‘heresy’ (1.6. chovce). . . . 

“ We know that heresies are necessarily so called because 
they are opposed to the truth ; from which truth the sophists 
(for such are the heretics) have, to the misfortune of men, 
taken certain elements and mingled them with inventions and 
artifices of their own ; and having done this they glory in 
being ὦ school rather than a Church.” ! 

Clement's method becomes more explicit: the Church 
represents knowledge (ἐπιστήμη), aS Opposed to mere opinion. 
Clement strives to show it by means of a discussion, in which 
he is willing to take the same ground as his opponents: 
and so prove to them that the most accurate gnosis is the 
traditional teaching, and that of all ‘‘ heresies” the one we 
should ‘‘ choose”’ is orthodoxy. Clement’s attitude is novel 
and bold: but these concessions made to heresy, and, after 
all, to the ever-recurring demands of controversy, are a mere 
tactical expedient, which detracts in no degree from the 
rightful claims of the ‘old Church,” presided over by the 
presbyters, to possess the deposit of the revealed faith. 

We insist purposely on the anti-heretical character of 
Clement’s ecclesiology, for the Protestant authors of histories 
of dogma take delight in denying it that character. In their 
eyes, Tertullian and Irenzus are Catholics, because they re- 
quire an external standard of faith, and their Christianity is 
essentially a system of doctrinal enactments; but Clement 
is a Protestant, or at least—for those who hesitate to use 
this term—a mystic: ‘‘Clement’s Christianity is the Spirit, 
which inspires him, guides him, and mostly determines his 
choice of the various elements which he borrows from 
Philosophy.”? Thus is found at Alexandria, towards the 
year 200, the ‘‘religion of the Spirit”? and Liberal Pro- 


1“ Stromat.” vir. 15 (1x. 528): ἐν μόνῃ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ καὶ τῇ ἀρχαίᾳ 
ἐκκλησίᾳ ἥ τε ἀκριβεστάτη γνῶσις καὶ ἡ τῷ ὄντι ἀρίστη γνῶσις - αὐχοῦσι 
προΐστασθαι διατριβῆς μᾶλλον ἢ ἐκκλησίας. 

2 E. pe Faye, ‘‘ Clément d’Alexandrie”’ (Paris, 1898), p. 298 and foll. 
The same view is taken by C. Biae, “The Christian Platonists of 
Alexandria ” (Oxford, 1886), especially p. 101. 

17 


258 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


testantism, in contrast with Catholicism which, about the 
same time, triumphantly prevails at Carthage, Rome and 
Lyons. 

This theory disturbs the equilibrium of Clement’s doctrine. 
For him, revelation and philosophy are co-ordinated under 
three terms: the first is philosophy, whose mission it is to 
purify the soul, to elevate it morally, thus to prepare 
it for the reception of faith; the second is faith itself; the 
third is gnosis, that gnosis which truth builds up on the 
foundation of faith... This distinction is of the greatest 1m- 
portance. What motive have we for saying that Clement 
discards the central term, faith, for the profit of the two 
others? For that Clement receives that faith in no other 
way than Tertullian and Irenzus, we have already shown, 
and we shall prove it still more conclusively. 

“Those who attack grave questions will inevitably fall 
into grave errors unless they receive from the Truth rtself the 
rule of the truth. Such people, in consequence of falling 
away from the right path, err in many points ; as you might 
expect from their not having the criterion by which to judge 
what 18 true and what false... . 

“ Asif aman should, like those drugged by Circe, become 
an animal, so, he, who has spurned the ecclesiastical tradr- 
tion, and embraced the opinions of heretical men, has ceased 
to be a man of God and to remain faithful to the Lord... . 
For we have, as the source of doctrine, the Lord, who by the 
Prophets, the Gospel, and the blessed Apostles, ‘vn diverse 
manners and sundry times’ [Heb. 1. 1] leads us from the 
beginning of the gnosis to the end. But af one should sup- 
pose that another principle was required, then no longer 
could the principle be truly kept sound. . . . The Scripture 
and voice of the Lord, such is our criterion in the discovery 
of the things [of gnosis]... . The pronciple is above all 
discussion,” " 

1 Stromat.” vit. 3 (1x. 424 C): φιλοσοφία ἡ ἑλληνικὴ οἷον προκαθαίρει 
καὶ προεθίτει τὴν ψυχὴν εἰς παραδοχὴν πίστεως, ἐφ᾽ ἢ THY γνῶσιν ἐποικοδομεῖ 
ἡ ἀλήθεια. On this co-ordination of faith and of gnosis with philosophy, 
cf. BARDENHEWER, vol. τι. pp. 56-8. 


2 Ibid. vir. 16 (ix. 532). In view of these texts, Harnack 
(“ Dogmeng,” τ΄, 413) grants that “the empirical conception of the 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 259 


Clement does not speak here of philosophical pro- 
pedeutics: he speaks of the faith, and of the gnosis that is 
built on the faith. Now, as that gnosis is also claimed by 
the heretics, what is the difference between the heretical and 
the ecclesiastical gnosis? The heretics have no respect for the 
canon of truth, they have no criterion of truth, because they 
repudiate the ecclesiastical tradition (παράδοσις ἐκκλησιασ- 
τική)]. What is meant by this tradition? It is the πίστις, 
which here Clement calls ἀρχή: it is the teaching of the 
Prophets, of the Gospel, of the Apostles; or again, it is the 
Scripture and voice of the Lord. Faith, or revelation is, 
then, the starting-point of reflexion, of speculation, in a word 
of the gnosis, which is our work, our contribution, our in- 
vention (εὕρεσις). In this work of discovery, Greek philo- 
sophy may have a legitimate place and function;! far from 
being for the Christian a cause of the loss of his faith, it will 
strengthen his faith: ‘‘ We shall not be torn away by it from 
the roots of our faith . . . but rather, if we may so say, we 
shall find in it a fuller protection and a kind of exercise which 
furnishes a demonstration of our faith’’.2 Still, we must not 
forget that, for Clement, this exegetical and theological 
superstructure rests on the faith contained in the ecclesiasti- 
cal tradition. Christ’s teaching is truly the only and neces- 
sary foundation,’ and no other gnosis than that which 
Clement calls ἐκκλησιαστικὴ γνῶσις can be accepted.! 

“For us, then, he alone is a gnostic, who has grown old 


Church, which regards her as the institution in possession of the true 
doctrine, was . . . completely adopted by Clement”: “ but,” he adds, 
“Clement employed it simply in polemics and not in positive teach- 
ings”. I hope to show that this is not a true account of Clement’s 
thought. 

1“ Stromat.” 1. 1 (vir. 705) and 20\(816-7). 

2 Ibid. τ. 2 (vir. 709 B): συγγυμνασίαν τινὰ πίστεως ἀποδεικ- 
τικήν. 

* Cf. “Cohort. ad Gent.” 11 (v1. 228 and foll.). 

4“ Stromat.” vir. 16 (tx. 544 A). How can Harnack say (loc. cit.) 
that Clement ascribes to his own gnosis a value independent of the 
Catholic Church? The same erroneous view is found in Loors (op. cit. 
p. 171), who draws attention to the contrast between “the inner freedom 
of the personal Christianity ” of Clement, and the great ecclesiasticism 
(“ Kirehlichkeit ”) of Origen, his disciple. 


{7} 


260 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


in [the study of] the Sacred Scriptures, marntarning the apos- 
tolic and ecclesiastic rectitude of doctrines.” 1 

Can we wish for a declaration that could be more in 
keeping with the thought of Irenzus and could reassure us 
better as to the nature of Clement’s “‘gnosticism”? Still 
we will cite another. The heretics, Clement writes, make a 
wrong use of the Divine discourses of Holy Writ, and thus 
neither enter into the kingdom of Heaven nor let others 
reach the truth. 

““ Not having the key of entrance, but a false and (as the 
common phrase expresses it) counterfert key, they do not enter 
in as we enter in, by drawing aside the curtain,’ that is, the 
tradition of the Lord, but by making an opening in the side, 
prercing clandestinely through the wall of the Church, and 
stepping over the truth, they constitute themselves the mysta- 
gogues of the souls of the improus. 

“ For that the human assemblies which they hold are 
posterior to the Catholic Church,’ requires not many words 
to show. The teaching of Our Lord during His presence 
[upon earth], beginning with Augustus and Tiberius, was 
completed in the middle of the reign of Tiberius [14-37]: the 
teaching of the Apostles of the Lord, embracing the ministry 
of Paul, ends under Nero [54-68]. It was at the earlrest in 
the times of Hadrian [117-188], that those who invented .the 
heresies arose, and they continued to the time of Antoninus 
the elder [138-161], as for wnstance, did Basilides, though 
he claims for his master Gluucias, a pretended interpreter 
of Peter, as [those heretics] boast ; likewise too Valentinus, 
who, they allege, was a disciple of Theodas, a self-styled 
pupil of Paul; so also Marcion . . .* 


1 Stromat.” vit. 16: τὴν ἀποστολικὴν καὶ ἐκκλησιαστικὴν σώὠξζων 
ὀρθοτομίαν τῶν δογμάτων. 

2 διὰ τῆς τοῦ κυρίου παραδόσεως εἴσιμεν. 

3 ὅτι μεταγενεστέρας τῆς καθολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τὰς ἀνθρωπίνας συνηλύσεις 
πεποιήκασιν. 

4 Three lines follow on the text of which editors do notagree. Hort 
and Mayor substitute ‘‘ Mark” for ‘‘Marcion,” and propose to read : 
“ Mark the evangelist was more ancient than Glaucias and Theudas, so- 
called disciples of the Apostles. He was more ancient even than Simon, 
who most assuredly heard Peter.”” This Simon (Magus) was the first 
heretic. 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 261 


“ Such being the case, it is evident that these later heresies 
and [with still greater reason| those subsequent to them wm 
time, are novelties and corruptions as compared with the 
eldest and truest Church.' 

“From what has been sard, it 1s my opinion that the 
true Church, that which is really ancient, is one, and that in 
at those who are truly just are enrolled ; since for the very 
reason that God 18 one, and the Lord one, that which 18 
in the highest degree venerable is lauded because it 18 
single, imitating in this its source which is one. The 
Church then is associated to the nature of wnity which 
they [1.6. the heretics] strive to divide into many heresies.” 

“Therefore, in substance, in idea, in principle, in pre- 
eminence, we say that the ancient and catholic Church ὃ as 
alone, wn the unity of the one faith, which is according to the 
Testaments... . The preemanence of the Church, as well as 
the principle of rts constitution, is in this oneness,’ and it swr- 
passes all things else, and has nothing like or equal to ttself. 

‘““ As to the heresies, some bear a person’s name, as those 
which are called after Valentinus, after Marcion, after 
Basilides although they boast of possessing the teaching of 
Matthias ;° for as the teaching of all the Apostles was one, 
so also the tradition [of that teaching] is one. Some take 
their designation from a place, as the Peratics ; some, from 
a race, as the Phrygians; some, from a virtue, as the 
Encratites ; and some, from their peculiar dogmas, as the 
Bacetae.* ὁ νὰ οἷν 

The opposition between the Church and the heresies 


1 τῆς προγενεστάτης καὶ ἀληθεστάτης ἐκκλησίας. 

5 The Greek text is as follows: φανερὸν οἶμαι γεγενῆσθαι, μίαν εἶναι 
τὴν ἀληθῆ ἐκκλησίαν, τὴν τῷ ὄντι ἀρχαίαν -. .. Τὸ ἄκρως τίμιον κατὰ τὴν 
μόνωσιν ἐπαινεῖται, μίμημα ὃν ἀρχῆς τῆς μιᾶς - Τῇ γοῦν τοῦ ἑνὸς φύσει συγκλη- 
ροῦται ἐκκλησία ἡ μία, ἣν εἰς πολλὰς κατατέμνειν βιάζονται αἱρέσεις. 

5 μόνην εἶναι φαμὲν τὴν ἀρχαίαν καὶ καθολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν. 

Δ ἡ ἐξοχὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, καθάπερ ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς συστάσεως, κατὰ τὴν μονάδα 
ἐστί. 

> Clement alludes to the Παραδόσεις, wrongly ascribed to St. Matthias. 
This apocryphal writing, which dates from the first quarter of the second 
century and was held in great esteem by the school of Basilides, is often 
quoted by Clement. Preruscnen, “ Antilezomena,” pp. 13, 15. 

ὁ «Stromat.” vu. 17. Horr and Mayor, pp. 188-90. 


= 


262 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


‘ can hardly be more strongly emphasized. Against the 


many heresies that strive to oppose her, the Church stands 
one,’ because of her very constitution, her principle, her 
origin, the idea of her divine founder. Against the heresies, 
all of recent formation, the Church stands, the first-born, 
ancient, true, worthy of respect, holy, to whom alone the 
just belong, as to her alone belongs the teaching of the 
Apostles, of all the Apostles, in an authentic tradition. 
One, holy, apostolic, she is besides catholic: this last word, 
which is missing in Ireneeus, is actually uttered by Clement. 
She is also, we may add, the Mother Church. 

“Ὁ mysterious wonder! One is the Father of the uni- 
verse, one the Spirit Who 18 everywhere, and one is the only 
virgin mother. TI love to call the Church by this name, . . 
pure as a virgin, loving as a mother.” ὃ 

Utterances of mystical enthusiasm are these, it is true, 
like those of St. Ignatius of Antioch; but they have an 
object as directly perceptible as the heresies, since their pur- 
pose is to proclaim more emphatically the contrast between the 
unity of the Church, on one hand, and the multiplicity of 
heresies, on the other. We readily grant that, unlike 
Irenzeus, Clement does not dwell on the bonds that bind 
together all the members of this large body; still it remains 
beyond dispute that the Catholic Church, as conceived and 
described by Clement, possesses a rule of faith, a standard 
of lturgy, a canon of the Scriptures, a common tradition. 
Again if in this empiric Catholicism, episcopacy is not as 
clearly brought forward as it is in the writings of Irenzus, 
it is well for us to remember that no more stress is placed 
on the various churches, those single units whose total sum 
makes up empiric Catholicism. Yet, they do exist, as so 
many individuals, and their individual unity has for its guar- 


1'The reader will find a remarkable development of this idea of the 
unity of the Church in “ Peedagog.” 1. 4 (vir. 260) and in ‘‘ Stromat.” 
mi. 11 (vit. 1172). Hence it is not possible to share Harnack’s view, 
‘‘Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 412, and say that Clement changes his concep- 
tion of the Church, beginning with chapter 15 of “Stromat.” vir. The 
“ὁ Stromata ” (about 208-11) was the latest work of Clement. 

5 KaTTENBUSCH, vol. 11. p. 926, does his utmost to explain the word 
καθολική in the sense of τοῦ θεοῦ. ; 

* εὐ Paedagog.” 1. 6 (vit. 300 B). 


THE CASE OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA 263 


antee the monarchical episcopate which, like the churches 
themselves, owes its origin to the Apostles. Abundant as 
may be the share assigned, in those of Clement’s works 
that have reached us, to philosophical propedeutics, on one 
hand, and to ecclesiastical gnosis, on the other, the framework 
of the faith is the same for him as for Ireneus; his Church 
is both hierarchical and anti-heretical. 

Perhaps, after the perusal of the previous pages, some 
may hesitate to say with Mr. Bigg: ‘‘ No echo of the strife 
which was raging at his time for the triumph of the hier- 
archy penetrated the tranquil seclusion in which Clement 
lectured and composed. He reflects with calm fidelity the 
image of the bygone times in which he had himself been 
reared. His heart is with the republic; he is the Samuel 
of the new monarchy.”’! 


1Biea, “ Christian Platonists,” pp. 100-1. For a more complete de- 
scription of the episcopal régime at the time of Clement, we might refer to 
what is known, especially through Eusxstus, “‘ H. E.” vr. 12, of Serapion, 
who was Bishop of Antioch between the years 190 and 211. We might 
also recall two most striking incidents related by Hippolytus in the 
“*Comment. on Daniel,” xvin. and xrx. (‘‘ Hippolytus Werke,” vol. 1. 1, 
pp. 230-4). These facts, the first of which refers to a Bishop of Syria, 
the second, to a Bishop of Pontus, show that in each Church the bishop 
was everything, and that, if he had a rather limited measure of common- 
sense, he could draw all his Church after him into such extravagances as 
those described by Hippolytus. The ‘Commentary on Daniel” was 
written in the year 204, and therefore dates exactly from Clement’s epoch. 


CHAPTER VI. 
TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS. 


To Tertullian, a Carthaginian by birth, Eusebius gives the 
title of ‘‘ Roman,” and most rightly so, for the great African 
is just as much a ‘‘ Roman” as Irenzeus. Born about the 
year 160, he was in his maturity when he embraced Chris- 
tianity (about the year 195). He became at once a priest of 
Carthage. An apologist after the manner of Justin and 
Trenzus, he was for a short while the spokesman both of 
Latin and of Greek Christendom, for he writes both Latin 
and Greek; he is, with a brilliancy of his own, eristecus et 
ardens vir, tradition personified.2 Then he passes over to 
the party of the “‘new prophecy,” rebels against Rome, and 
ends his days in isolation and obscurity. 

Had Tertullian died before embracing the Montanist 
error, his ecclesiology would hardly differ from that of 
Trenseus, whose important treatise ‘‘ Contra Haereses ”’ he cer- 
tainly knew and turned to account. But Tertullian did not 
remain a Catholic: he attempted to harmonize the principle 
of the rule of faith based on tradition, with the principle of 
individual prophetical inspiration. His Catholicism, in his 
best days, confirms the notion of Catholicism presented to 
us by Irensus; his semi-Montanism and his open Montan- 
ism confirm the same notion, but by way of contrast. 

This we shall see by studying, first, the ‘‘ De Praescrip- 
tione haereticorum’”’ (composed about the year 200). 


LL 


Since Christianity consists in unity through conformity 
to a rule of faith, no wonder that the existence of ‘‘ non-con- 


1'The words are from St. Jerome, ‘‘ Epistul.” Lxxxtv. 2. 
2On this point (against Harnack), cf. BarDENHEWER, vol. 11. pp. 


340 and 362. 
2964 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 265 


formists ’ becomes a scandal: ‘‘ Plerique hoc ipso scandali- 
zantur quod tantum haereses valeant”. They are too many 
and too important. They succeed in winning to their 
errors some of the faithful who were known to be prudent 
and approved: here a bishop, there a deacon, elsewhere a 
doctor, even a martyr.! Tertullian grants the facts, but 
desires that no one should be moved by them. For we 
must not judge the faith, he says, by the persons who betray 
it: the wind carries off the chaff; the corn that remains is 
the purer for it. Was not the Lord Himself abandoned and 
betrayed? And St. Paul? Did not the Lord foretell that 
there would arise false prophets, false apostles, antichrists ? 
Did not the Apostle Paul warn us against heresies? Let no 
one, therefore, be troubled by this flood of heresies, since 
they have been announced beforehand. 

Then, Tertullian goes to the heart of his inquisition: 
he criticises the heresy which he is opposing, i.e. learned 
Gnosticism, and brings against it the reproach already 
brought against it by Irenzus and Clement of Alexandria: 
viz. that it is a mere web of secular sophistry. The 
Gnostic errors, “‘natae de ingenio saprentiae saecularis,” 
are arash interpretation of the Divine Nature and of the In- 
carnation. They draw their inspiration from philosophy : 
Valentinus borrowed from the Platonists, Marcion from the 
Stoics and Hpicureans. Heretics and philosophers discuss 
the same topics: the origin of evil, the origin of man, the 


1“ Praescr.” 3: ‘Quid ergo, si episcopus, si diaconus, si vidua, si 
virgo, si doctor, si etiam martyr lapsus a regula fuerit, ideo haereses veri- 
tatem videbuntur obtinere ?” 

2 Tbid. 1-6. 

*The same argument will later on be taken up by St. Hippolytus, 
quoted by Ευβεβ. “H. E.” v. 28. The view that the various Gnostic 
errors are borrowings from Greek philosophy, is driven home by the 
“ Philosophoumena ” (particularly in the VIIth book), according to which 
Basilides was perverted by Aristotle, Valentinus by Plato and Pythagoras, 
Marcion by Empedocles, and so too the other leaders of Gnosticism. 
Tertullian and Hippolytus meant to react, in this way, against the in- 
dulgent attitude which the Greek apologists who had preceded them, and 
perhaps, too, the Hellenistic Jews, had adopted towards the Greek 
wisdom. 


266 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


origin of God. ‘Their method, the method of them all, is 
that of Aristotle, that ‘‘ miserable Aristotle ’’2 

Of what avail is all this philosophy? Against its seduc- 
tions St. Paul has forewarned us; and the Apostle knew 
well this human wisdom “ affectatricem et interpolatricem 
veritatis,’ he had seen it at work at Athens.2 We have 
nothing in common with it. 

“Viderint qui stoicum et platonicum et dialecticwm 
christianismum protulerunt. Nobis curiositate opus non 
est, post Christum Iesum ; nec inquisitione, post evangeliwm. 
Cum credimus, nihil desideramus ultra credere: hoc enim 
prvus eredimus, non esse quod ultra credere debeamus.”® 

Treneus does not think differently, when, as against the 
Gnostics who aim at perfect knowledge and despise the 
simple-mindedness of the ‘‘ Psychics,” he stands for simple 
faith and affirms its claims. A typical African, Tertullian 
presents this thought in an absolute and somewhat ageres- 
sive form. He thinks it quite useless on the part of some 
to bring against him the words of the Gospel: “Seek and 
ye shall find,” for no one seeks, unless he has not already 


1 Praescr.” 7 : ‘‘ Miserum Aristotelem, qui illis dialecticam instituit, 
artificem struendi et destruendi, versipellem in sententiis, coactam in coni- 
ecturis, duram in argumentis, operariam contentionum, molestam etiam 
sibi ipsi, omnia retractantem, ne quid omnino tractaverit! ... Quid 
ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis? Quid Academiae et Ecclesiae? Quid 
haereticis et christianis?” Compare the interesting Greek fragment of 
the Περὶ ἐκκλησίας, ascribed to Anthimus, Bishop of Nicomedia (+ 302) dis- 
covered and published by G. Mercatt, ‘‘ Note di letteratura biblica e cris- 
tiana antica”’ (Rome, 1901), pp. 95-8. This fragment reminds us far more 
of Irenzeus and of Tertullian than of Origen. It begins as follows: ‘‘ As 
there is one God, one Son of God, one Holy Ghost, so also God created one 
man, one cosmos only, and there is one Catholic and Apostolic Church, and 
one baptism for the whole cosmos. Mia τοίνυν καθολικὴ καὶ ἀποστολικὴ ἐκ- 
κλησία ἔστι καθ᾽ ὅλης οἰκουμένης, Which continues to preserve to this day the 
faith she received from the Apostles. She is called Catholic, because she is 
spread all over the world. . . . But heresies have received [their teaching] 
neither from the Apostles, nor from the disciples of the Apostles, nor 
from the bishops, successors of the Apostles, . . . nor are they established 
everywhere, nor are their churches called Catholic.” Then the author 
shows that those heresies originated with the Sadducees, or Simon, etc., 
and all the heresiarchs borrowed their doctrines from the philosophers, 
especially from Plato, Aristotle and Hermes Trismegistus. 

2 Cf. ‘‘De Anima,” 3. 3 <¢ Praeser.7 4. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 267 


found ; and we who have found the faith, have but one 
thing left: viz. to preserve it. Even supposing we had 
still something to seek after, should we apply for infor- 
mation to the heretics, in whose systems everything is 
either foreign or opposed to ‘our truth,” our regula fider ?! 
Tertullian gives in his own style the articles of this requla 
fidet, the baptismal symbol received at Carthage.” This, he 
continues, was the rule established by Christ, a rule that 
raises no questions save those which are put forth by 
heretics and form the very essence of their heresy. Let 
us leave this rule intact, and preserve its order and wording. 
Or, if you find in it anything equivocal or obscure, consult 
some one in the Church, who is learned and experienced, so 
that he may seek with you the hight you need. But to 
remain in ignorance is still better.* 

However heretics may and actually do object that, after 
all, the regula fide is not everything, since there are also 
the Scriptures, that are sources of faith; and so, they base 
their disputes on the Scriptures. But, replies Tertullian, 
this is precisely what we must not allow them to do: first, 
because the Apostle Paul forbids us to have any discussion 
with heretics ; secondly, because, with the heretics of to-day, 
no one knows what Scriptures they accept, what text they 
read, what interpretation they give: you will gain nothing 
at all from discussion, and the faithful, whom you intend to 
enlighten by disputing before them with the heretics, will 
go away more uncertain than before. It is most unprofit- 
able to discuss the contents of the Scriptures, ‘‘an quibus 
aut nulla, aut incerta victoria est, aut par incertae”. One 
question only must be asked: to whom does the deposit of 
faith belong, to whom does the deposit of the Scriptures- 
belong ? 4 


1° Praeser.’’ 12: “ Nemo inde instrui potest, unde destruitur : nemo 
ab eo illuminatur a quo contenebratur. Quaeramus ergo in nostro, et a 
nostris, et de nostro, idque dumtaxat quod salva regula fidei potest in 
quaestionem devenire ”’. 

* Ibid. 15. Concerning the value of this text, as representing the 
symbol of Carthage, cf. D’Auns, ‘“Théologie de Tertullien ” (Paris, 1905), 
pp. 256-7, and K. Apam, ‘‘Der Kirchenbegriff Tertullians ” (Paderborn, 
1907), pp. 38-40. 

* Ibid. 14. Cf. ‘‘ De Anima,” 2. 1 [bid. 15-19. 


208 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


The answer to the question thus put must be an answer 
of fact; for it is of no importance to have proved first 
what Jesus is in relation to God. This alone is of import- 
ance: that, when here below, Jesus taught; that, among His 
disciples, He chose twelve men, whom He destined to be 
the teachers of nations and whom He sent to the nations, 
to instruct them, and baptize them in the name of the 
Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. These Apostles 
preached the faith of Jesus first in Judea, where they also 
‘founded Churches; then they went to the nations, and 
preached to them the same doctrine and founded Churches 
in every city; later on, from these Churches established by 
‘the Apostles the other Churches received the germ of faith 
and the seed of doctrine; and this is also done every day by 
the Churches that are being founded in our midst: and 
therefore they too are called Apostolic, because they are the 
offspring of the Apostolic Churches. So, there is a first 
Church founded by the Apostles, from which all others 
have sprung.1 
/ Here Tertullian does but develop the argument of apo- 
‘stolic succession, as he found it in the works of Ireneus: 
what the Apostles preached, they held from Christ; and our 
Churches are Apostolic in their origin. In other words: the 


1“ Praescr.” 20: “ Apostoli . . . primo per Iudaeam contestata fide 
in Iesum Christum et ecclesiis institutis, dehinc in orbem profecti, eam- 
dem doctrinam eiusdem fidei nationibus promulgaverunt, et proinde 
ecclesias apud unamquamque civitatem condiderunt, a quibus traducem 
fidei et semina doctrinae ceterae exinde ecclesiae mutuatae sunt et cotidie 
mutuantur ut ecclesiae fiant, ac per hoc et ipsae apostolicae deputantur 
ut soboles apostolicarum ecclesiarum. Omne genus ad originem suam 
censeatur necesse est. Itaque tot ac tantae ecclesiae, una est illa ab 
apostolis prima ex qua omnes. Sic omnes prima et apostolieae, dum una 
omnes probant unitatem, dum est illis communicatio pacis, et appellatio 
fraternitatis, et contesseratio hospitalitatis. Quae iura non alia ratio 
regit quam eiusdem sacramenti una traditio. ‘‘Praescr.” 21: ‘ Constat 
omnem doctrinam quae cum illis ecclesiis apostolicis, matricibus et 
originalibus fidei, conspiret veritati deputandam, id sine dubio tenentem 
quod ecclesiae ab apostolis, apostoli a Christo, Christus a Deo accepit ; 
omnem vero doctrinam de mendacio praeiudicandam, quae sapiat contra 
veritatem ecclesiarum et apostolorum et Christi et Dei”. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 269 


Churches, being Apostolic, bear witness to the Apostles, just 
as the Apostles bear witness to Christ.! 

Tertullian has to answer the difficulties which the 
heretics (in this case, the Marcionites) are wont to urge 
against this familiar argument. T'wo hypotheses can be 
made: according to the first, the Apostles did not know 
everything, and hence in Scripture and by means of Scrip- 
ture, we may reach depths which they failed to fathom; ac- 
cording to the second, they did not teach everybody all that 
they knew, and consequently there may be an esoteric tradi- 
tion, more profound than the tradition of the Apostolic 
Churches. 

Tertullian accepts neither hypothesis. How could we 
ever believe that Christ concealed anything pertaining to the 
faith from those He was constituting the teachers of man- 
kind? For instance, how could Peter, who was to be the 
corner-stone of the Church, have been ignorant of anything 
in the domain of faith?? Again, the hypothesis of a secret 
teaching which the Apostles entrusted only to a few privi- 
leged persons, is just as improbable. Nor can it be said, 
either, that the Churches may have misunderstood what was 
taught them by the Apostles.® 

Tertullian is not loth to grant that particular Churches 
may fall into error and need correction: St. Paul styled the 
Galatians foolish, and the Corinthians carnal. Yet, St. Paul 
praised the faith and knowledge of other Churches, that are 
now in perfect harmony with those he formerly corrected : 


1In the ‘‘ De Virg. vel.” 2, Tertullian, when a Montanist, will say : 
** Sed eas ego ecclesias proposui, quas et ipsi apostoli vel apostolici viri 
condiderunt, et puto ante quosdam”. ‘Tertullian writes thus against 
some Catholics who, like him, were appealing to the authority of the 
Churches founded by Apostles: he recalls that he had invoked this 
authority before they did : an allusion to the passage of the ‘*‘ De Praesc.” 
we have just quoted. We may look upon these ‘‘ quosdam,” as certain 
Roman clerics, as is suggested by Harnaock, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 490, 
161, and E. Rotrrs, ‘‘ Urkunden aus dem antimontanistischen Kampfe 
des Abendlandes ” (Leipzig, 1895), p. 44. 

2 «* Praeser.” 22: ““ Latuit aliquid Petrum aedificandae Ecclesiae pet- 
ram dictum, claves regni caelorum consecutum, et solvendi et alligandi 
in caelis et in terris potestatem ?” 

3 Ibid. 27. 


270 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


“‘Hodie cum illis correptis unius institutions iwra mis- 
cent’’.' Shall we say that all the Churches have erred ? 
Shall we suppose that the Holy Ghost, whom Christ was to 
send as the teacher of truth, had no regard for any Church, 
and that He, the Vicar of Christ, failed in His duty and left 
the Churches to think and believe whatever they pleased, 
and otherwise than He Himself was preaching by the 
Apostles ?? 

Unanimity of belief, combined with faith in the guidance 
of the Holy Ghost, is, then, a first proof of the authenticity 
of tradition.® 

This tradition is more ancient than any heresy what- 
ever.* This tradition was in possession long before men 
spoke of Marcion the Stoic, or of Valentinus the Platonist.® 
Apelles is even more recent, since Marcion was his master. 
Nigidius, Hermogenes, and a host of others are still living. 
As 15 self-evident, merely from a chronological point of view, 
that comes from the Lord and is true which is older in tradi- 
tion, whereas what appeared later is strange and false.® 

The priority of the ecclesiastical tradition is vouched for 
by the fact that the Apostolic Churches prove they truly come 
down from the Apostles: Smyrna claims Polycarp who was 
put there by John, Rome claims Clement who was put there 
by Peter; so also for the other Churches.’ Let the heretics 


a 


1“ Praescr.” 27. 

2 Ibid. 28: Nullam [ecclesiam] respexerit Spiritus sanctus, uti eam 
in veritatem deduceret [‘‘ Ioan.” x1v. 26], ad hoc missus a Christo, ad 
hoc postulatus de patre, ut esset doctor veritatis [“ Ioan.” xv. 26]. Neg- 
lexerit officium Dei villicus, Christi vicarius, sinens ecclesias aliter interim 
intellegere, aliter credere, quam ipse per apostolos praedicahbat.” 

3 Ibid. 28: ‘‘Nullus inter multos eventus unus est exitus: 
variasse debuerat error doctrinae ecclesiarum. Ceterum quod apud 
multos unum inyenitur, non est erratum, sed traditum.” 

4 Ibid. 29. 

> Ibid. 30. The same considerations are urged in the “ Adv. 
Marcion.” 1. 19. And we have seen the same argument developed by 
Clement of Alexandria. 

6 Tbid. 31: ‘‘ Ita ex ipso ordine manifestatur id esse dominicum 
et verum, quod sit prius traditum; id autem extraneum et falsum, 
quod sit posterius immissum ”. 

7 Ibid. 32: “Edant ergo [haeretici] origines ecclesiarum suarum, 
evolvant ordinem episcoporum suorum ita per successiones ab initio de- 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 271 


show such a διαδοχή if they can! If, however, apostolic 
ancestors must at any cost be found for them, they are to be 
found in the fomenters of errors, condemned by the Apostles 
themselves: the Sadducees, Ebion, Simon, the Nicolaites: 
this is the genealogy of heresies and of their adulterous doc- 
trines.| If they are bent on crushing us, let them bring 
forward against us the proof we bring forward against them, 
let them show that our Catholic faith is a heresy. But this, 
they cannot do, for it is a fact that we have our priority ; 
that we have been in occupation since the Apostles, and, that 
far from condemning us, the Apostles confirm us in our pro- 
perty. ‘‘ Posterior nostra res non est, immo omnibus prior 
est: hoc erit testimonium veritatis ubique occupantis princi- 
patum. Ab apostolis utique non damnatur, immo defenditur : 
hoe erit indicium proprietatis.” ἢ 

Tertullian concludes as follows :— 

‘Si haec ita se habent ut veritas nobis adiudicetur qui- 
cumque in ea regula incedimus quam Hcclesia ab apostolis, 
apostoli a Christo, Christus a Deo tradidit, constat ratio pro- 
positi nostri definientis non esse admittendos haereticos ad 
ineundam de scripturis provocationem.,’’® 

The ‘‘ De Praescriptione”’ closes with a few thoughts that 
are disconnected with the argument we have been using, but 
deserve notice, because they recall the similar thoughts which 
we have found in Ireneus. Heretics, says Tertullian, have 
no other inspiration than that of Satan. The lack of ecclesi- 
astical discipline, which prevails among them, is beyond be- 
lief; a like disorder prevails in their preaching. They are 
not unwilling to associate with astrologers, philosophers . . . 
and charlatans. How severely God will deal, on the day of 
judgment, with these adulterers! “Quid dicent qui illam 


currentem, ut primus ille episcopus aliquem ex apostolis vel apostolicis 
viris qui tamen cum apostolis perseveraverit, habuerit auctorem et ante- 
cessorem. Hoc enim modo ecclesiae apostolicae census suos deferunt 

.” Compare chapter 36, in which Tertullian comes back to this apos- 
Policies of the great Churches, especially of the Roman Church; we shall 
quote it later. The same thoughts are found in ‘‘ Adv. Mare.” 1. 21, u1., 
Iv. 5. 

1 <* Praescr.” 33-4, 2 Ibid. 35. ὃ Ibid. 37. 


272 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


stupraverint adulterio haeretico virginem traditam a 
Christo 2?” ! 


* * 
*% 


To estimate aright the argument we have been analyzing, 
we must first determine how far it depends on the juridical 
theory of prescription. 

Prescription, as described in our modern legal codes, is 
but one kind of prescription in general, as the latter is under- 
stood in the language of Roman Law. For, by prescription, 
the Romans meant any mode of procedure resorted to by one 
of the parties for stopping at once the opponent’s action, and 
duly recorded by the pretor in the formula that was delivered 
to the judges: briefly, prescription was any plea of exception. 
There can be, of course, various pleas of exception: as regards 
ownership, for instance, a plea of exception may consist in 
invoking actual occupancy as a title that bars any action to 
recover, after the lapse of a certain number of years: this is 
called praescriptio longi temporis.2? Prescription thus based 
on occupancy, is an exception which appears comparatively 
late ; Gaius is unacquainted with it; we find it mentioned for 
the first time in a rescript of 29 December, 199 a.p.; and 
the first law that makes it of general observance is enacted 
by Theodosius II in the year 424.3 It is hardly probable 
that Tertullian applied to theological questions a device.of 
legal procedure, which, towards the year 200, was so new 
and so little known; he used the juridical term, praescriptio, 
most probably, in its oldest meaning, to designate an argu- 
ment disputing the presuppositions of the main point, inter- 
posed to make the discussion of the latter nugatory. 


1“ Praescr.” 41-4. We do not need to say that chaps. 43-53 are no 
part of Tertullian’s work, and are not found in the best MSS., for instance 
in the ‘‘ Codex Agobardinus” (Paris. lat. 1622). They form a ‘‘ Libellus 
adversus omnes haereticos”’ or descriptive catalogue of heresies, which 
dates probably from the first half of the third century. 

2De Savieny, ‘Traité de droit romain” (French transl., Paris, 
1846), vol. v. p. 284 and foll.; F. Grrarp, “ Manuel élémentaire de droit 
romain,” fourth edit. (Paris, 1906), p. 299 ; P. Moncraux, ‘ Hist. litt. de 
l'Afrique chrét.” vol. 1. (Paris, 1901), p. 304. 

3 SaviaNy, p. 293. See the rescript of Severus and Garnealle, dated 
29 December, 199, in Grrarp, “'Textes de Droit romain,” p. 187. P. pE 
Lasriouie, “‘ L’Argument de Prescription,” in “ Revue d’Hist. et de 
Littr. relig.” vol. x1. (1906), p. 431. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 273 


In fact, if we read attentively the ‘‘De Praescriptione 
haereticorum,” we easily perceive that Tertullian’s argument 
on the previous question is just the argument from tradition. 
In reality—to quote Monceaux’ appropriate remark—“ his 
proof is the proof from tradition, to which the defenders of 
Catholicism have always appealed. The Greek controversial- 
ists of the second century had already fought Gnostic specula- 
tions in the name of the teaching of the Apostles, regularly 
handed down from generation to generation, and kept intact 
in the one doctrine of the Church. But here, as in all his 
apologetic works, Tertullian strengthens the method by the 
rigour of his argumentation, and extends considerably its 
bearing, by applying to the controversy the procedure of juris- 
prudence.”! I may be allowed to change slightly the last 
words of Monceaux’ sentence: Tertullian has a logical rigour 
of argumentation which neither Irenzeus nor any one else 
possessed before him: and augments not its significance but 
its force by giving it an appearance of novelty through the 
application to controversy of the language of the forum.? 

Let us reconstitute Tertullian’s argument. The authentic 
faith is that which is contained in the regula fidet common 
to all the churches: hence this rule of faith must be pre- 
ferred to any opposite contention which the heretics may 
claim to justify either by Scripture or by philosophy. 

This Tertullian proves first by means of a principle we 
have already met with in Ireneus, the authentic tradition 
is that which does not vary. This principle he expresses 
in epigrammatic form: ‘Quod apud multos wnum in- 
venitur, non est erratum, sed traditum”’. Tertullian does 
not lay stress on perpetuity in time, he appeals to the 
subsisting unanimity only, and, as he is opposing living 
heretics, he does not speak precisely of unanimity, but of a 
faith common to many, “apud multos unum”. Later on, 
Vincent of Lerins will not preserve, in his over-rigid canon, 
the shades of meaning so carefully respected here by Tertullian. 
Secondly, Tertullian invokes another argument in proof of the 
agreement of the actual teaching of the churches with the 


1 Moncravx, vol. 1. p. 331; De Lasrioxte, ‘‘ Tertullien, De Praescr.” 
(Paris, 1907), p. xxv. 
“See especially ‘‘ Praescr.” 73. 


18 


974 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


teaching of the Apostles: the aid of the Holy Spirit was pro- 
mised by the Saviour to the disciples who believed in Him, 
until the end of the ages: if all the churches had erred, what 
had become of that aid?! 'Thirdly—and this is strictly the 
argument of the Apostolic succession, the one which Irenzeus 
has so fully developed—Tertullian appeals to the fact that 
all the great Churches are Apostolic in their origin, and there- 
fore the tradition common to those Churches is also Apostolic. 
On this theme Tertullian writes an eloquent page, which 
manifestly draws its inspiration from the work of St. Ireneus.? 

Tertullian then does not appeal to the praescriptio longi 
temporis.? He uses, it is true, the following expressions 
which have been misunderstood: “Mea est possessio, olim 
possideo” ; but he does not appeal to this actual and ancient 
possession, as entitling him to dismiss the claims of heretics ; 
for he adds immediately: “ Habeo origines firmas, ab ipsis 
auctoribus quorum fuit res: ego sum haeres apostolorwm. 
Sicut caverunt testamento suo, sicut fidet commiserunt, 
secut adiwraverunt, ita teneo”.* The property is proved to 


' Apam, “ Kirchenbegriff,” p. 34, distinguishes, as we do, the three 
proofs of Tertullian : the first and the third rest on facts, the second rests 
on a doctrine of faith, I mean, the aid of the Holy Ghost : a proof touched 
upon already by Irenzeus (11. 24,1). Later on Novatian also will intist 
on the aid given to the Church by the Spirit (‘‘De Trinitate,” 29): 
“‘Unus et idem Spiritus qui in prophetis et apostolis, nisi quoniam ibi ad 
momentum, hic semper. . . . Hic est qui ipsorum [= discipulorum] ani- 
mos mentesque firmavit, qui euangelica sacramenta distinxit, qui in ipsis 
illuminator rerum divinarum fuit. . . . Hic est qui prophetas in ecclesia 
constituit, magistros erudit, linguas dirigit, virtutes et sanitates facit .. . 
quaeque alia sunt charismatum dona componit et digerit. . . . Hie est 
qui operatur ex aquis secundam nativitatem, semen quoddam divini 
generis. . . . Hic est qui. . . sectas repellit, regulam veritatis expedit, 
haereticos revincit, improbos foras expuit, euangelia custodit. . . . In 
hoc Spiritu positus nemo .. . alia et sacrilega decreta constituit. . . . 
[Hic] ecclesiam incorruptam et inviolatam perpetuz virginitatis sanctitate 
custodit.”’ 

2 «¢Praescr.” 36; IREN. 11. ὃ. 

3’ Nor does he make such an appeal in the other books where he 
‘* prescribes” against heretics. Those texts are given by Dr LaBRioLuE 
in the article quoted, pp. 425-7. ‘‘ Adv. Mare.” 1, 1, 9, 21, 22; m1, 1, 
3, Iv. 4, 5, 10, 38, v. 19; ‘‘ Adv. Hermog.” 1; ‘‘ Adv. Praxean,” 2; 
“* De Carne Christi,” 2. 

4“ Praescr.” 37. Cf. ‘Scorpiace,’ 9: ‘‘haereditarii discipuli et 
apostolici seminis frutices ”. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 275 


be legitimately in the hands of its actual occupant by the 
very titles which prescription if unsupported would have 
to supply: for the occupant affirms that he holds his pro- 
perty on the title of inheritance and he produces the will: 
he shows that there is a legacy, and thus gives a full and 
direct proof of his right of property, a proof which a prae- 
seriptio longr temporis would have rendered unnecessary. 

Thus presented, the argument from tradition demon- 
strates the legitimacy of the inherited faith: any doctrine 
contrary to that regula fidei is rightly condemned by the 
bare fact that it arose later than the doctrine that is Apostolic. 
We have thus against heresy a praescriptio novitatis which 
is a corollary of the positive and direct authentication of the 
Apostolic faith, already given.1 The controversialists of the 
seventeenth century, who held in such honour the argument 
from prescription—as it is generally called—can claim Ter- 
tullian as their forerunner, inasmuch as he opposed to the 
heretics this praescriptio novitatis.” 

However, he realized that the authentication of the regula 
fider by the tradition is a general proof that does not dispense 
from a careful study of the various circumstances and details : 
as also that the praescriptio novitatis dismisses at once the 
claims of heretics, but does not dispense with the necessity 
of solving their objections. This Tertullian wisely and frankly 
acknowledges at the close of the ‘‘ De Praescriptione,’ where 
he sums up his whole argument thus: ‘‘ Sed nune quidem 
generaliter actum est a nobis adversus omnes haereses ”. 
He has shown how, in the name of the praescriptio novitatis 
—a corollary of the thesis on the apostolicity of the rule of 
faith—we must refuse to dispute with heretics about the 
Scriptures; but he adds presently: If God in His grace per- 
mit, ‘‘etiam specialiter quibusdam respondebimus”.® — Ire- 
neus followed the same method. Like him, Tertullian will 
make a thorough criticism of Marcionism, and write against 

} Against Tertullian, after he became a Montanist, Catholics will 
urge precisely that prescription of novelty: ‘‘ Novitatem igitur abiectant 
...’ “De Jejunio,” 1. The treatise ““De Jejunio” was composed 
after the year 213. 

2 PescH, ‘‘ Prael. dogm.” vol. 1. p. 246; BaRDENHEWER, vol. I1. 
p. 360. 

3 *° Praescr.” 44. 


18." 


276 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hermogenes, against the followers of Apelles and Valentinus, 
against Praxeas. Truth is that whichis a primordio ; heresy 
is that which is recent; hence without undertaking any 
further detailed examination, “‘ sine retractatu doctrinarum,” 
we reject heresy straight off. However, this method, when 
applied to religious questions, and when applied exclusively 
and always to those questions, tends to inspire a legitimate 
distrust... Although the novelty of a doctrine suffices to 
judge it, yet, if we wish effectively to forewarn the minds of 
men against its surprises, and to avoid the appearance of 
condemning it without adequate knowledge, we must examine 
it in detail.’ 


The ‘‘ De Praescriptione haereticorum ” has the merit of 
setting in the clearest light the truth that the Church is 
above all a society whose teaching is authoritative and whose 
authority is apostolic. 

On this point Tertullian is absolutely at one with Irenzeus 
and Clement of Alexandria. But with what force and in- 
cisiveness he can express his thoughts! He sets before us 
the Apostles journeying through the world, and announcing 
to the nations the same doctrine of the same faith: ‘‘ Jn orbem 
profecti, eamdem doctrinam etusdem fider nationibus pro- 
mulgaverunt”’. In each city a Church is founded; but all 
these Churches are knit together by the bond of their 
common Apostolic origin. Hence their abiding unity: how- 
ever numerous they are, however great, «they all bear 
witness to their unity by their peaceful inter-communion, 
their sense of brotherhood, their interchange of hospitality— 
rights which no other law sustains save the one tradition of 
the self-same faith.” 

But neglecting the polemical standpoint, which for tac- 
tical reasons Tertullian assumes in the ‘‘ De Praescriptione,” 
let us study his conception of the living teaching authority : 


1** Adv. Marcion.” 1. 1. 

2 Adv. Praxean,”’ 2: ‘‘. . . id esse verum quodcunque primum, id 
esse adulterum quodcunque posterius. Sed salva ista praescriptione, 
ubique tamen propter instructionem et munitionem quorundam dandus 
est etiam retractatibus locus, vel ne videatur unaquaeque perversitas 
non examinata, sed praeiudicata damnari.” 

3“ Praescr.” 20. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 277 


“Go through the Apostolic Churches, in which the very seats 
of the Apostles, at this very day, preside in their place. . . . 
Art thou near Achaia? Thou hast Corinth. If thou art not 
far from Macedonia, thou hast Philippi, thou hast Thes- 
salonica. If thou canst travel in Asia, thou hast Ephesus. 
But if thou art near to Italy, thou hast Rome, where we also 
have an authority close at hand. Happy Church on which 
the Apostles poured out all their doctrine, together with 
their blood: where Peter had a like passion with the Lord ; 
where Paul was crowned with a death like that of John [the 
Baptist]; where the Apostle John was plunged into boiling 
oil, and suffered nothing! . . . Let us see what she [Rome] 
has learned, what taught, what she has certified in common 
with the Churches of Africa. She acknowledges one only 
God, the Creator of the universe; Christ Jesus the Son 
of God the Creator, born of the Virgin Mary; the resurrec- 
tion of the flesh. She joins the Law and the Prophets 
with the Gospels and thence drinks in her faith. That 
faith she seals with the water, clothes with the Holy Spirit, 
feeds with the Eucharist; she exhorts to martyrdom; and 
she receives no one save in accordance with this rule: 
‘““adversus hanc institutionem neminem recipit”  Speak- 
ing of all the Churches, Tertullian had already said: “‘ Unius 
wnstitutionis ura miscent”’? 

Baptism is the Sacrament through which we become 
Christians: we are fishes after the pattern of Jesus, our 


1 Praescr.” 36. This is the well-known passage: ‘‘ Si Italiae ad- 
iaces, habes Romam unde nobis quoque auctoritas praesto est. Ista quam 
felix ecclesia, cui totam doctrinam apostoli cum sanguine suo profuderunt, 
ubi Petrus passioni dominicae adaequatur, ubi Paulus Ioannis exitu coro- 
natur. . . . Videamus quid didicerit, quid docuerit, quid cum africanis 
quoque ecclesiis contestetur.”” Compare “‘ Adv. Marcion.” tv. 5, where 
Tertullian speaks of the Romans to whom “ euangelium et Petrus et Paulus 
sanguine quoque suo signatum reliquerunt.” D’Axis, “ Tertullien,” p. 
216: “ Tertullian did not speak as plainly [as Irenzeus] of the nature of 
the prerogatives vested in the see of Rome. However, he emphasizes the 
primacy of Peter. He speaks of Peter as the foundation of the Church, 
the depositary of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and as the one to 
whom has been awarded full power to bind and to loose. . . . [The 
Church of Rome] is the mother of the African Churches ; she appears as 
the centre of unity by her doctrine and action.” 

2 ἐς Praescr.” 27. 


278 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


symbolical IXOYS, and, like fishes, we are born in water.! 
Baptism is conferred by means of a formula the few words 
of which when pronounced suffice to work the stupendous 
miracle of regeneration.2 These few words consist in the 
invocation of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost 
(“De Bapt.”6). Tertullian affirms that the formula of 
Baptism implies by logical connexion the mention of the 
Church: ‘. . . Necessario adicitur Ecclesiae mentio, 
quoniam αὐδὲ tres, id est Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus, 
bi Ecclesia, quae triwm corpus est” (ibid.). He has said else- 
where that to invoke the Father, in the Lord’s prayer, is to 
invoke also the Son, and not to forget the Mother: “ Ne 
mater quidem Ecclesia praeteritur: si quidem im Frlio et 
Patre mater recognoscitur, de qua constat et patris et fil 
nomen”.® According to Tertullian, one is baptized implicitly 
in Ecclesiam. 

After the immersion, the new Christian is anointed: 
““ Egresst de lavacro perungimur” (‘De Bapt.” 7). He 
then receives the imposition of hands; and at the same time 
the Holy Ghost, earnestly entreated to come down, descends 
on the body which has been cleansed and blessed (8). After 
this rite, he is admitted to pray with those who now are his 
brethren. Tertullian sets before our eyes the newly bap- 
tized coming out of baptism and praying for the first time 
in the Church: “. . . primas manus apud Matrem cum 
fratribus aperitis”’ (20). Outside the Church there is no 
baptism ; for there is but one Baptism, just as there is but 
one Church, and one Christ. Heretics have not the same 
Christ as we have, nor the same baptism. How could there 
be two Christs, or two baptisms? ‘“[Baptismum] cum rite 
non habeant, sine dubio non habent.”* In their counter- 


1“ De Baptismo,” 1. 

2 Ibid. 2: ‘* homo in aquam demissus et inter pauca verba tinctus ”. 

3 Tbid. 6. See Lurron’s note, ‘‘ Tertull. De Bapt.” (Cambridge, 1908), 
p- 19. “De Orat.” 2.—On the Church as our mother, see “ Adv. Marcion.” 
11. 4, m1. 24, τν. 11, v.4; “De Bapt.” 20; “‘De Monog.” ὁ and7; “ Ad 
Mart.” 1.—On the Church as associated with the three Persons of the 
Trinity, see Hrerotyt. ‘‘ Contra Noet.” 18. On this point, at least with 
Tertullian, a strange and somewhat obscure conception prevailed. 

4 Ibid. 15: ‘*Sed de isto plenius iam nobis in graeco digestum 
est”. This is an allusion to the Greek edition of the ‘‘ De Baptismo ” 
previously issued by Tertullian. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 279 


feit and weak faith, heretics baptize ‘‘in iudicium,” whilst, 
in their genuine faith, true Christians baptize ‘an salutem” 
(10). ‘‘ Dandi quidem habet ius summus sacerdos, qui est 
episcopus. Dehinc presbyteri et diaconi, non tamen sine 
episcopi auctoritate, propter Ecclesiae honorem. Quo salvo, 
salva pax est. Alioquin etiam laicis ius est. . . . Sed quanto 
magis laicis disciplina verecundiae et modestiae incumbit, 
cum ea maioribus competat, ne sibi assumant dicatum epis- 
copis officium. Episcopatus aemulatio schismatum mater 
est” (16 Baptismo,” 17). 

The Church is a hierarchical society: the laity are sub- 
ordinate to the deacons and to the priests; and these, to the 
bishop: all—the laity as well as the mnores, i.e. deacons 
and priests—must respect the bishop.' Only on these con- 
ditions can peace and unity be preserved. Woe to the priests 
who usurp the episcopal office, for these rivalries give rise to 
deplorable schisms. The bishop is vested with the sove- 
reignty of authority and order: he may be rightly called a 
““summus sacerdos”: a title given formerly only to the 
Jewish High Priest at Jerusalem. The first bishops were 
established by the Apostles.2. In each Church, none are pro- 
moted to the ‘‘ordo ecclesiasticus”’* without receiving the 
testimony of all: “‘ Praesident probati quique seniores, hono- 
rem istum non pretio, sed testimonio adeptr: neque enim 
pretio ulla res Dei constat’”’.* If convicted of a grave fault, 
a presbyter may be deposed.® Presbyters alone—to the ex- 
clusion of laymen—may exercise, in union with the bishop, 
the ““ sacerdotalia munera”’:° viz. teach, baptize and cele- 


1 Cf. ‘‘De Praescr.” 42: ‘‘[Haeretici] nec suis praesidibus reveren- 
tiam noverunt. . . . Schisma est unitas ipsis.” 

2<¢Te Praescr.” 32. Of. ‘““De Fuga,” 13; ‘‘ Adv. Marcion.” 
EV. Os 

51 find the expression ordo ecclesiasticus in the ‘‘ De idolol.” 7. 
True, in this passage, Tertullian, still Catholic, expresses his indignation 
at the fact that Christians not thoroughly converted are received among 


the clergy: ‘‘Adleguntur in ordinem ecclesiasticum artifices idol- 
orum !” 

4“ Anol.” 39. 

5“*De Bapt.” 17: ‘‘Sciant in Asia presbyterum, . . . convictum 
atque confessum, . . . loco decessisse”. Of. ‘‘ Ad Uxor.” 1. 7. 


6 ἐξ Praescr.” 41. 


280 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


brate the Eucharist.1_ The presbyters, the bishop being with 
them, are the intercessors to whom the penitent goes, kneel- 
ing before them as a suppliant soliciting forgiveness.? To the 
bishop belongs the right of pardoning those penitents whose 
sins can be remitted.® If the sinner’s offence is so great that 
it requires expulsion from the Church, the sentence is given 
by the bishop after mature examination: “ Nam et iudicatur 
magno cum pondere,. . . si quis ita deliquerit ut a com- 
municatione orationis et conventus et omnis sancti com- 
merew relegetur ”.* 

Heresies necessarily cut themselves off from this com- 
munity of life and doctrine; they are the bitter wild olive- 
tree that springs from the kernel of the olive; or again, the 
barren and useless wild fig-tree, that springs from the seed 
of the fig: though they spring from our stock, they are not 
of our family,> and we must break with them, just as we 
do with public sinners.6 ‘ Haeretici nullum habent con- 
sortium nostrae disciplinae, quos extraneos utique testatur 
ipsa ademptio communications’. The right to teach, 
which belongs to the bishop and to his presbyterium, involves, 
as its complement, the right to condemn error and proscribe 
the heretic. 

These, then, are the ideas of Tertullian, the Catholic. 
Yet the same impetuous dialectician, who has so forcibly in- 


1“ WVirg, vel.” 9: ‘‘ Non permittitur mulieri in ecclesia loqui [1 Cor. 
xiv. 34], sed nec docere, nec tinguere, nec offerre, nec ullius virilis muneris 
nedum sacerdotalis officii sortem 5101 vindicare ”. 

2 De Paenit.”9: “‘. . . presbyteris advolvi et caris Dei adgeniculari”’. 
Cf. ‘‘De Pudicit.” 13. This attitude of suppliants had given rise to a 
peculiar calumny, of which some use may be made for the history of the 
penitential discipline. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. 1. p. 410. 

3“ De Pudicit.” 18: ‘‘. . . levioribus delictis, veniam ab episcopo 
consequi poterit”. The sins that are not leviora are enumerated by 
Tertullian, whilst still a Catholic, in ‘‘ De Idololatria,” 1; ‘‘De Bapt.” 4; 
‘* Apolog.” 2 and 11: ‘‘ De Spectac.” 3and 20. Cf. D’Atss, ‘‘ Tertullien,” 
pp. 272-5. 

4“ Anol.” 39. To pronounce excommunication is ‘‘ in praesidentis 
officio”. ‘De Pudicit.” x1v. 16. 

5 «< Praescr.” 36. 

6“ De Jejun.” 1: ‘*. . . dum quaque ex parte anathema audiamus, 
qui aliter adnuntiamus ”. ; 


7 De Bapt.” 15. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 281 


sisted that the mark of Catholicism is above all ‘ eiusdem 
sacramenti una traditio,” came to plead on behalf of private 
inspiration and individual charisms. 


II. 


The work ‘‘De Virginibus velandis’”’ was composed be- 
tween the years 208 and 211, when Tertullian had not yet 
broken with the Church. The occasion that gave rise to this 
short treatise is in appearance insignificant, but the funda- 
mental issue it raises is identical with that raised in the 
Paschal controversy. Between two Biblical interpretations, 
tradition decides ; but in case two traditions conflict, how is 
the question to be settled? We must choose, he says, be- 
tween two customs. According to one custom, virgins have 
to wear a veil; according to the other, they are not obliged 
to wear it: the former custom prevails in many Churches of 
Greece, and the latter, in the Churches founded by the 
Apostles or their immediate disciples. We cannot say that 
this latter custom 15 ‘‘ foreign,” since those are not “‘ foreigners 
with whom we are in the communion of peace and brother- 
hood”: their faith is our faith: we are all but one and the 
same Church.! 

We must not forget that there is custom and custom. 
A custom may arise from ignorance or from simple-minded- 
ness, then obtain recognition through the duration of time 
(per successionem), and afterwards be unlawfully arrayed 
against truth. Christ said: ‘“‘Iam the truth”. He did not 
say: “1 am the custom”. The rule of faith, alone, can 
neither change nor be improved.2 Whilst on the one hand, 
this rule of faith must be kept as inviolable as a law, on the 
other hand, all that pertains to discipline and Christian life 


'“*De Virgin. veland.” 2: ‘*. . . non extraneorum, cum quibus 
scilicet communicamus ius pacis et nomen fraternitatis. Una nobis et 
illis fides unus Deus, idem Christus, eadem lavacri sacramenta. Semel 
dixerim, una Ecclesia sumus.” Cf. “ Praescr.” 20. The Church founded 
by the Apostles which Tertullian has in mind, is surely the Roman 
Church. 

* Ibid. 1: ‘*Haeresim non tam novitas quam veritas revincit : 
quodcumque adversus veritatem sapit, hoc erit haeresis, etiam vetus 
consuetudo”. We are rather far from the ‘‘ praescriptio novitatis ”’, 


282 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


admits of corrections and innovations, inasmuch as it is the 
mission of Divine grace to labour for the progress of souls to 
the end of time;! for, just as Satan is constantly working 
and daily adding to the mass of wickedness, so too the work 
of God never stops, or ceases to advance, the more so that 
the Lord has sent the Paraclete, in order that He might 
enlighten human infirmity which could not comprehend all 
at once, and in order that the same Paraclete, being Christ’s 
vicar, might gradually perfect discipline.2 Hence, Tertullian 
acknowledges, side by side with the intangible faith, an 
unceasing action of the Spirit. 

‘““Quae est ergo Paracleti administratio nisi haec, quod 
disciplina dirigitur, quod Scripturae revelantur, quod intellec- 
tus reformatur, quod ad meliora proficitur?” (‘De Virgin. 
vel.” 1) 

These expressions contain certain obscurities which we 
must clear up. The work of the Holy Ghost here referred 
to, is not that which He did before the coming of Christ, but 
that which He does now when, being sent by the glorified 
Christ, He supplies His place in the Church. By this Holy 
Spirit, Christian lfe is daily ruled and reformed: for has 
not Tertullian just told us that all pertaining to discipline 
may be corrected and improved? By the Spirit the mind, 
too, may be enlightened and corrected, as well as the con- 
duct. By the Spirit also, through an action intermediate 
between these two, ‘Scripture revelantur,” Scriptures 
(manifestly such as are new and inspired), are revealed.’ 
Hence revelation is not as yet concluded, it still continues, 
daily growing richer as a tree which daily expands. But 
revelation continues within the sphere of discipline and of 
Christian life, not in that of belief, since the rule of faith 


1*¢ De Virgin. veland.” 1: “ Hac lege fidei manente, cetera iam dis- 
ciplinae et conversationis admittunt novitatem correctionis, operante 
scilicet et proficiente usque in finem gratia Dei”’. 

2 Tbid.: “. . . cum propterea Paracletum miserit Dominus, ut quo- 
niam humana mediocritas omnia semel capere non poterat, paulatim 
dirigeretur et ordinaretur et ad perfectum perduceretur disciplina ab illo 
vicario Domini Spiritu sancto ”. 

3**Quae est ergo Paracleti administratio nisi haec, quod disciplina 
dirigitur, quod Scripturae revelantur, quod intellectus reformatur, quod 
ad meliora proficitur?” Cf. ‘‘ De Monogam.” 4. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 283 


remains such as it was established by Christ. Hence we 
can say that righteousness was first rudimentary; then the 
Law and the Prophets brought it to a sort of childhood; the 
Gospel to youth; and the Paraclete brings it to maturity. 

‘‘Nunc per Paracletum componitur in maturitatem: hic 
erit solus a Christo magister et dicendus et verendus. Non 
enim ab se loquitur, sed quae mandantur a Christo. Hic 
solus antecessor, quia solus post Christum. Hune qui rece- 
perunt, veritatem consuetudini anteponunt. Hune qui au- 
dierunt usque nunc, non olim, prophetantem, virgines 
contegunt.”’! 

In this question of discipline—viz. whether or not young 
women have to be veiled—Tertullian opposes to the custom 
of the Apostolic Churches the truth revealed by the new 
prophets, through the Spirit, who does not speak of Him- 
self, but announces what Christ gives Him to announce 
(John xvr. 18), and is also the only Master whom Christ 
gives us to recognize and revere. 

Tn the “‘ De Anima” (208-211), we have the description 
of a scene of prophetism, that takes place at Carthage, in the 
open Church and before the clergy. A Christian lady of the 
city, the recipient of the charisms of revelation, passes into 
this extraordinary state, generally on Sundays whilst the 
liturgical synaxis is going on: she converses then with the 
angels, nay, at times, with the Lord Himself; she sees or 
hears mysteries. The matter of her visions relates to the 
liturgy: lessons, psalmody, homilies, prayers. One day, 
Tertullian relates, he and others had discoursed about the 
soul, whilst this Christian woman was rapt in spirit. When 
the synaxis was over and the people had been dismissed, 
she was asked what she had seen ‘‘ Nam et diligentissime 
digeruntur, ut etiam probentur,’?—and she answered that 


1“De Virgin. vel.” 1. The expression ‘‘ hic solus antecessor”’ alludes 
to the fact that Catholics bring forward the authority of the presbyters 
and bishops of old: “Tempora et antecessores opponunt” (‘De Virg. 
vel.” 2). ‘‘Sed nec inter consuetudines dispicere voluerunt 1111 sanctis- 
simi antecessores” (ibid. 3). Tertullian has become entirely averse to any 
mention of the traditional magisteriwm : his chief thought is now of the 
Spirit, and the Spirit alone. 

2 The prophetic texts quoted by Tertullian may be found in D’Atks, 
“ Tertullien,” p. 452. 


284 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


she had seen a soul in bodily shape. Tertullian has no 
doubt whatever that this is a supernatural revelation fully 
guaranteed.' 

This revelation regarding the nature of the soul proves 
that the Paraclete cannot limit His action to discipline alone, 
and that, notwithstanding Tertullian’s previous assertions, 
it extends even to matters of doctrine, as had already been 
sufficiently suggested by the visions of Perpetua and 
Saturus, which are preserved in the ‘‘ Passio” of St. 
Perpetua and of St. Felicitas, which dates from the year 203. 
In this way will be formed a new variety of Gnosticism, 
claiming to be inspired by the Paraclete: ‘“‘ He [the Holy 
Ghost] has accordingly now dispersed all the equivocations 
of the past, and the pretended parables, by a full and clear 
explanation of all the mysteries, through the new prophecy, 
which descends in copious streams from the Paraclete.” ? 

So speaks Tertullian, during the years 208-211. 

The Church had disowned the energumens, Montanus 
and his two prophetesses: but a decision has yet to be taken 
concerning prophetism itself, and its claim to be a continua- 
tion of revelation. It seems that this question remained 
long unanswered. Certainly, even before the year 213, 
Tertullian speaks with harshness of those Christians who do 
not accept the new prophecy: he calls them psychici,? whilst 
he calls spiritales, those who acknowledge the charism of 
the Spirit—in allusion to the text of St. Paul, who affirms 
that the carnal man does nct receive what is from the 
Spirit of God. In the year 211, in the ‘De Corona,” he 
adopts an insulting tone: he maintains that his opponents 


1“ De Anima,” 9. 

2¢¢De Resurr. carnis,’ 63. The text of the ‘‘ Passio” of St. Per- 
petua and St. Felicitas may be found in Mieng, ‘‘ P. L.” vol. m1. pp. 13- 
60, and in Rosrnson, ‘‘ The Passion of St. Perpetua” (Cambridge, 1891). 
The original text is the Latin, but its author is not Tertullian. At the 
time of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua and her companions, there is 
evidently, in the Christian community of Carthage, an intense outburst 
of the spirit of vision and revelation ; but we cannot say that Montanism 
strictly so called had a share in this extraordinary phenomenon. 

3“ Ady. Marcion.” Iv. 22 (about the year 207-208). ‘‘ Adv. 
Praxean,” 1: “Εὖ nos quidem postea agnitio Paracleti et defensio dis- 
iunxit a psychicis ”. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 285 


are retrograding towards apostasy. ‘‘ Clearly nothing re- 
mains but that those should refuse martyrdom also, who 
have rejected the prophecies of the same Holy Spirit” that 
makes martyrs... Hence we cannot say that the formal 
condemnation of the prophecies must have taken place at 
the beginning of the year 213, between the composition of 
the treatise ‘‘Ad Scapulam” and that of the treatise ‘“‘ De 
Fuga’’: this condemnation is a well-ascertained fact, but ex- 
cept that it occurred about the year 210, no precise date 
can be given. 

St. Jerome wrote that Tertullian had been goaded into 
Montanism by the harsh proceedings of the Roman ec- 
clesiastics: “‘Jnvidia et contumeliis clericorum Romanae 
ecclesie ad Montani dogma delapsus”’.? Although when 
speaking of the Roman ecclesiastics Jerome is always under 
suspicion of not being impartial, he can hardly have made 
this statement without some ground, and it may have been 
suggested by the reading of Tertullian’s now lost treatise 
“De Extasi,”’ written after the year 213. Were that so, 
it would furnish a proof that the new prophecy was con- 
demned by the Roman Church. 

As a matter of fact, the Roman authorities had been on 
their guard for a long time against the new prophets, an 
attitude in which they were in perfect agreement with the 
tradition. If Pope Eleutherius hesitated for a moment to 
repudiate the prophecies of Montanus, Priscilla and Maxi- 
milla, when reminded of the sentiments of the Roman 
bishops, his predecessors, he determined to issue his con- 
demnation.2 The ‘‘Muratorianum’’ forbids the ‘ Shep- 
herd” of Hermas to be read at the public readings of the 
Church, because he cannot be reckoned among the Prophets, 
whose number is complete, Ὁ... neque inter prophetas 


2“ De Corona,’ 1, 

2“<De Viris inl.” 59. The reader may remember that Hippolytus, 
a Roman ecclesiastic, composed a Περὶ χαρισμάτων ἀποστολικὴ παράδοσις. 
It is believed that in the ‘‘ De Monogamia,” Tertullian opposes St. Hip- 
polytus. Rotrrs, ‘‘ Urkunden,” p. 69. 


3'Tertun. ‘‘ Adv. Praxean,” 1: ‘‘. . . praedecessorum eius auctori- 
tates defendendo”. We have already seen (p. 283) the importance that 
was attached to the ‘‘antecessores”. By auctoritates, decisions, docu- 


ments may be meant. 


280 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


completos numero, neque inter apostolos’’.' These words 
suggest that the ““ prophetical”’ question was no longer as to 
the character of the prophecies of Montanus and others, but 
as to whether or not the Biblical Canon was closed. About 
the year 200, the Churches felt they could not hesitate to 
give an affirmative answer; and probably there came from 
Rome a solemn judgment, of which we have an echo in the 
‘“‘Muratorianum’’: private revelations—such as those con- 
tained in the ‘“‘Shepherd’”’ of Hermas, which was held in 
great esteem in Rome—might preserve their private value, 
but Scripture alone was canonical. The severe measures of 
the Roman Church against the new prophecy so dear to 
Tertullian, were doubtless adopted by the other Churches, 
particularly in Africa: thus we may account for the insult- 
ing allusions to the hierarchy which Tertullian will hence- 
forth allow himself to make. 


* ok 
* 


Is it lawful to flee in the time of persecution, he asks 
in the ““De Fuga”. For the “spiritual,” this question 
raises no difficulty whatever: he does not flee. Nor does 
it trouble the Catholics, either: they flee, so cold and frivol- 
ous is their faith! Their leaders can teach them only how 
to retreat: ‘Their leaders themselves—I mean the very 
deacons, and presbyters, and bishops—take to flight’”’.2 Do 
you feel any scruples? ‘‘So much the worse for you, if, 
by not accepting the Paraclete, the guide to all truth, you 
have become embarrassed in regard to other questions.” ὃ 
You have thrust aside the Paraclete, and received instead a 
most worldly spirit: ‘‘ Apparently, the Apostles founded 
and with so much foresight organized the episcopate, that 


1 Zann, ‘‘ Grundriss,” p. 78. Compare ‘‘ Philosophoumena,” ὙΠ. 
19, 


2“ De Fuga,” 11: ‘‘Sed cum ipsi auctores, id est ipsi diaconi, pres- 
byteri et episcopi fugiunt, quomodo laicus intellegere poterit. ... Cf. 
*‘De Corona,’ 1: ‘‘ Novi et pastores eorum, in pace leones, in praelio 
cervos”’. 

5Tbid. 1: “. . . Paracletum non recipiendo deductorem omnis veri- 
tatis”. Cf. 14: ‘‘Paracletus necessarius deductor omnium veritatum 
... quem qui non receperunt,” etc. ‘‘De Jejun.” 10: ‘ Paracleto 


duce universae veritatis ”’. 


<hr 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 287 


bishops might be able to enjoy in security the revenues of 
their kingdom under pretext of administering it’’.! 

The very violence of these attacks attests the strength of 
the episcopal authority. Henceforth the bishops gather to- 
gether in councils, at least in Greek-speaking countries, to 
deliberate in common about the interests of the Church at 
large.2 As we shall see presently, the African bishops will 
not delay to do likewise. The whole ecclesiastical discip- 
line, and even more so the teaching and safe-keeping of the 
doctrine, is in the hands of the bishops.* Because the bishops 
have not accepted the “‘ new prophecy,” Tertullian will not 
forgive them. The ‘‘ Psychics,” he writes, strive to set bounds 
to the divine action itself: ‘‘ Palos terminales figitis Deo’’.* 
He sees in the episcopal authority both a restraining power, 
against which he rebels, and a relaxing power, which pro- 
vokes his indignation. The Apostle forbids bishops to enter 
into a second marriage, and behold among the Psychics, 
bishops take another wife: ‘ Quot et digami praesident 
apud vos, insultantes utique apostolo!” The Holy Ghost 
had clearly foreseen that one day bishops would exclaim: 
“Omnia licent episcopis’”’.° 

These last words prepare us for the outbursts which 


1 De Fuga,” 13: ‘* Hane episcopatui formam Apostoli providentius 
condiderunt, ut regno suo securi frui possent sub obtentu procurandi.” 

2« De Jejun.” 13: “ Aguntur per Graecias illa certis in locis concilia 
ex universis ecclesiis per quae et altiora quaeque in commune tractantur, 
et ipsa repraesentatio totius nominis christiani magna veneratione cele- 
bratur ”. 

* Witness the excommunication pronounced against Theodotus by 
Pope Victor, and known to us through the testimony of St. Hippolytus, 
in Euses. “ H. H.” v. 28, 9 : ἀφορισθέντος τῆςικοινωνίας ὑπὸ Βίκτορος τοῦ τότε 
ἐπισκόπου. Cf. “ Philosophoum.” vi. 25. 

*“De Jejun.” 11. Roxrrs, “ Urkunden,” pp. 42-9, surmises that in 
the “De Jejunio,” Tertullian is answering a written work, perhaps a kind 
of edict, that emanated from the Roman Church and had been issued by 
Pope Callistus. This document condemned the fasts and abstinences im- 
posed by the rigorists of the time, whether Marcionites or Montanists. 
In pp. 31-5, Rolffs attempts to reconstruct the document from the allu- 
sions of the ‘‘De Jejunio”. We may note this Roman declaration : 
“constituta sunt sollemnia huic fidei [ieiunia] scripturis vel more maiorum, 
nihilque observationis amplius adiciendum ob illicitum innovationis ” 
[“ De Jejun.” 13]. Compare Pope Stephen’s “ Nihil innovetur ”. 

5“*De Monog.” 12. Cf. ‘‘ De Pudicit.” 1. 15. 


288 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


brought Tertullian’s career to a close, the “‘De Pudicitia”’ 
(between the years 217-222). The circumstances under 
which that pamphlet was published are so well known that 
we need not record them here. It is enough to say that it 
is almed directly at the Roman Bishop, Pope Callistus. In 
order the better to proclaim the primacy of the Spirit, Ter- 
tullian assails the most Apostolic of all Churches, that to 
which he had paid, like Ireneus, so glorious a tribute. ‘I 
hear that an edict has been brought to the knowledge of the 
faithful and a peremptory one too. The ‘ Pontifex Maximus’ 
—otherwise called the bishop of bishops—proclaims: ‘I re- 
mit, to such as have done penance, the sins both of adultery 
and of fornication’. . . . And where shall this act of liber- 
ality be posted up? On the gates of the abodes of evil? 
No; in the Church itself this edict is read, in the Church 
itself it is pronounced; and the Church is a virgin! Far, 
far from Christ’s spouse be such a proclamation! She, the 
true, the chaste, the holy, must keep even her ears free from 
pollution. She has none to whom she can promise such 
pardons; she will not promise them.’! The Spouse of 
Christ is summoned, so to speak, by Tertullian to choose 
between the rigorism of the new prophecy and the laxism 
proclaimed by the bishop of bishops.” 


1“ De Pudicit.” 1. 6-9. 

2 Without wishing to return to an historical problem which has been 
treated elsewhere (‘‘ Etudes d’Hist. et de Théolog. posit. Iére Série,” fifth 
edit., 1907, p. 327 and foll.), we may repeat that this rigorism is not a Mon- 
tanist innovation. At the time of Callistus, and even against Callistus him- 
self, the same rigorism is defended at Rome, by Hippolytus, as a discipline 
not open to discussion. See the passage of the ‘‘ Philosophoumena,” v1. 
41, relative to the sacrament of redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις), by which the 
heretics deceive the simple in persuading them ‘‘ that, even after they 
have been baptized, they may receive again the forgiveness ἡ of their sins. 
See ibid. 1x. 15, the formula of the so-called Elchasaite baptism brought 
to Rome by the Syrian Alcibiades, at the time of Callistus or shortly 
after, and what Hippolytus tells us (ibid. 13) of that baptism which it was 
contended could be administered to Christians, already baptized, who had 
sinned. To this testimony of Hippolytus we may add that of Clement of 
Alexandria, ‘‘ Stromat.” m. 19, commenting upon the work of Hermas. 
On Irenzeus, as expressing the same view, cf. H. Kocu, ‘‘ Die Siinden- 
vergebung bei Irenius ” in the ‘‘ Zeitschrift fiir die neut. Wissenschaft,” 
1908, pp. 35-46. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 289 


The episcopal authority, that of Rome, is then directly 
attacked by Tertullian. The act promulgated by that 
authority he calls an edict, to assimilate it ironically with 
the act of a secular magistrate, i.e. of the praetor in previous 
times, of the Emperor, now.! Then to give a new point to 
his irony, Tertullian calls the Roman decision an ‘ edictum 
peremptorium,” one of those fundamental judgments which 
close a trial and put an end to all controversy.2. The indul- 
gent step taken by Callistus he styles ‘ liberalitas,” a word 
commonly used to signify an imperial favour: ‘ Liberalitas 
praestantissumorum wmperatorum ...” he writes in 
another passage.* He pushes his irony so far as to imagine 
that the edict, in regular form, begins with this declaration : 
“ Pontifex maximus, quod est episcopus episcoporum, 
edictt. . . .” Tt is thus that imperial edicts were worded 
in the first person, in contrast with the laws which ran in the 
third person of the imperative.‘ Tertullian calls the Bishop 
of Rome Pontifex maximus—a title which was then a pagan 
title and remained so until the reign of Gratian, in the fourth 
century.’ In a word, Tertullian strives, with insolent sar- 
casm, to impart to the decision of the Bishop of Rome, a 
secular and even an imperial tone and character. 

It may be asked what could the decision of a bishop whois 
not the Bishop of Carthage matter to this Carthaginian 
priest? But it is this which makes Tertullian’s pamphlet 
the more significant. or if he is so stirred by the edict of 
the Bishop of Rome, is not this a proof that such an edict 


'Tertu.. “ De Bapt.” 11: ‘Imperator proposuit edictum”. See 
K. Rourrs, “Das Indulgenz-Edict des rém. Bischofs Kallist”’ (Leipzig, 
1893), p. 20; De Lasrioiiez, “ Tertullien, De Paenitentia” (Paris, 1906), 
pp. XXii-xxiii. 

*“ Digest.” v. 1, 70: “Quod inde hoe nomen sumpsit quod peri- 
meret disceptationem, hoc est ultra non pateretur adversarium ter- 
giversari ”. 

3“ De Corona,” 1. 

4GrraRD, “Textes,” p. 173: “Ti. Claudius Caesar Augustus Ger- 
manicus pontifex maximus . .. dicit....” Cf. Dueissmany, p. 49. 
Tertullian’s tone inclines us to think that the formula ‘‘ Ego et moe- 
chiae” ete. is not given in its authentic terms. 

*See Trerrutt. “6 Monog.” 17: ‘‘ Pontifex Maximus et Flami- 
nica. . . .”; Boucu&é-LEciercg, art. ‘ Pontifices,” p. 578, in the “ Dic- 
tion. des Antiq.” of DAREMBERG and SaGtio. 


19 


290 PRIMITIVE CA'THOLICISM 


is of a nature to make itself felt in all the Churches? The 
“notentior principalitas”’ enters as a factor into the settle- 
ment of an important question: one may even gather that 
the Bishop of Rome has asserted the right and acted on it. 
Tertullian calls him ‘“ episcopus episcoporum,’! either be- 
cause the Bishop of Rome had taken this title, which is 
doubtful, or, which is more probable, because the wording of 
his edict alluded to the primacy of his see. 

Tertullian’s invectives are directed against the Roman 
primacy: Gallicanism was born in Africa! They are also, 
and even more, directed against the whole episcopal hier- 
archy. Or rather, Tertullian makes a distinction between 
what he calls discipline and what he calls power: discipline 
is something external, like politics, whilst power is some- 
thing supernatural. ‘‘ What is power? It is the Spirit, 
and the Spirit is God. Callistus claims the power of for- 
giving sins: well and good, if those sins were sins committed 


1D’Auus, ““ Tertullien,” p. 217, thinks that Callistus did not assume 
the title, episcopus episcoporum.—In the ‘‘ De Pudic.” x1. 7, Tertullian 
calls Callistus “ benedictus Papa” ; but at that time the appellation papa 
was given to bishops, and expressed the filial deference of those who used 
it. The earliest indication found at Rome of its being applied to the 
Bishop of Rome is an inscription which dates from the time of Pope Mar- 
cellinus (+ 304): ‘‘Cubiculum . . . iussu p[a]p[ae]sui Marcellini diaconus 
iste Severus fecit. . . .”’ ΤῈ Rossi, ‘‘ Inscriptiones Christ. Urbis Romae,” 
vol. 1. p. exv. Until then, no Bishop of Rome is addressed as papa, 
and yet we have many letters sent to the bishops of Rome. We may 
be referred to the letter of the martyrs of Lyons to Eleutherius, whom 
they style πάτερ ᾿Ελεύθερε (Eusus. “H. E.” v. 4, 2). But it is true also 
that, in writing to St. Cyprian, the Roman clergy calls him pope (inter 
Cypriant, ‘ Epistul.” xxx. inscr. and 16, xxx1., xxxvi.); and so do the 
Carthaginian confessors of the faith (‘‘ Epistul.” xxut.). The Roman 
clergy writes to that of Carthage: ‘‘Didicimus secessisse benedictum 
papatem Cyprianum .. .” (‘ Epistul.” viz. 1). St. Augustine is often 
addressed as papa by his correspondents. St. Jerome gives this title to 
such bishops as St. Epiphanius, John of Jerusalem, Theophilus of Alex- 
andria, St. Athanasius, Chromatius of Aquileia, but also to the Bishops 
of Rome, Anastasius and Damasus for instance. As early as the time of 
St. Cyprian, the Bishop of Alexandria is called pope, as likewise the Bishop 
of Carthage (see Husss. ‘‘ H. KE.” vit. 7, 4: τοῦ μακαρίου πάπα ἡμῶν Ηρακλᾶ, 
in a letter of his successor, Dionysius). Cf. Benson, pp. 29-31, Dgissmann, 
pp. 138 and 150, and Buonarutr, ‘‘Saggi di filologia e storia” (Roma, 
1910), pp. 237-45, 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 291 


against Callistus; but how can Callistus forgive sins com- 
mitted against God? If the Apostles remitted such sins, 
they did it, not in virtue of discipline, but in virtue of their 
power” (ex potestate). 

‘““Kixhibe igitur et nunc mihi, apostolice, prophetica ex- 
empla et agnoscam divinitatem, et vindica tibi delictorum 
elusmodi remittendorum potestatem. Quod si disciplinae 
solius officia sortitus es, nec imperio praesidere, sed ministerio, 
quis aut quantus es indulgere?”’ ! 

Is not the bishop, then, the heir of the supernatural 
powers granted by God to the prophets and to the Apostles ? 
Not at all, replies Tertullian: his only business is to see 
that discipline be observed. But, says Callistus, the Church 
has the power (potestas) of forgiving sins. Certainly, answers 
Tertuluan, and our new prophecy proclaims that power. 
‘“‘ De tua nunc sententia quaero, unde hoc ius ecclesiae usurpes. 
Si quia dixerit Petro Dominus: Super hance petram aedifi- 
cabo ecclesiam meam, tibi dabo claves regni caelestis, vel 
Quaecunque alligaveris vel solveris in terra erunt alligata 
vel soluta im caelis, idcirco praesumis et ad te derivasse sol- 
vendi et alligandi potestatem, id est ad omnem ecclesiam 
Petri propinquam?? Qualis es, evertens atque commutans 
manifestam Domini intentionem personaliter hoc Petro con- 
ferentem Ὁ ὃ 

How can Callistus be bold enough to claim for himself 
the power of the Church? Is it because of the words said 
to Peter? By what right does Callistus misinterpret the 
plain intention of the Saviour, who, when He addressed 


1 “Te Pudicitia,” χχι. 5-6. We have seen elsewhere the title ἀποσ- 
τολικός applied to the immediate disciples of the Apostles, to St. Polycarp 
for instance (Huss. ‘‘ H. E.” m1. 36, 10). 

2From this we may infer that, in order to justify his claim to the 
power of the keys, Pope Callistus appealed to Matt. xvr. 18-19, “the 
first instance of the kind recorded in history,” as Harnack observes 
(‘‘Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 492). Granted, but Tertullian does not question 
the fact that the Church is founded on St. Peter, he concedes that point : 
“Omnis ecclesia Petri propinqua,” words to be translated: ‘‘ Every 
church is connected with Peter” instead of: ‘‘ Every church which is 
connected with Peter,” as de Labriolle takes it. Tertullian refuses to 
admit that the power of keys passed over to any church, as such. 

3 «De Pudicit.” xx1. 9-10. 


1 


292 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Peter, manifestly meant to grant him a privilege that was 
to be personal and for him only? “1 will give to thee the 
keys,” not to the Church. The keys are the symbol of St. 
Peter’s Apostolic ministry,' as recorded in the book of the 
Acts. 

What, then, is the power granted by Christ to the 
Church, to every Church ? 

‘“@uid nunc et ad Kcclesiam, et quidem tuam, psychice ὃ 
Secundum enim Petri personam spiritalibus potestas ista 
conveniet: aut apostolo aut prophetae. Nam et ipsa Hc- 
clesia proprie et principaliter ipse est Spiritus, in quo est 
trinitas unius divinitatis, Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanc- 
tus. Illam ecclesiam congregat, quam Dominus in tribus 
posuit. Atque ita exinde etiam numerus omnis, qui in hanc 
fidem conspiraverint, ecclesia ab auctore et consecratore cen- 
setur. Ht ideo Ecclesia quidem delicta donabit, sed Ecclesia 
Spiritus per spiritalem hominem, non Kcclesia numerus 
episcoporum.? 

Christ conferred on Peter and the Apostles the power 
of forgiving sins, when He gave them the Holy Ghost: 
“Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall for- 
give... .’’ Hence that potestas belongs to any one who 
has received the Holy Ghost, it belongs to all the Spirituals, 
i.e. to the Apostles, and after them, to the prophets. | It 
belongs also, and equally well, to the Church, since (a re- 
miniscence of Irenzus) where the Church is, there is also 
the Spirit; but the ministers of the Spirit are the Spirituals 
only, and not those who are merely invested with such or 
such a disciplinary function, like bishops.* 

We grant that ‘exceptional historical importance at- 
taches to’”’ these statements of Tertullian;* but we cannot 


1 De Pudicit.” xx1. 11-15. ἢ Ibid. 16-17. 

3 Tf this is the case, the distinction between the laity and the hier- 
archy is of merely ecclesiastical origin : as a matter of fact, Tertullian will 
boldly declare, later on, that the priesthood belongs to all, and that, in 
the absence of a priest, a layman can validly celebrate the Eucharist, just 
as well as he does Baptism. Cf. ‘De Exhort. Castit.” 7; “De Monog.” 
7 and 12; “De Pudic.” 21. It may be remembered that Tertullian, 
speaking of the heretics, had once said, with indignation: ‘‘ Laicis sacer- 
dotalia munera iniungunt!” ‘‘ Praescr.” 41. 

4 Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. 14, p. 403. 


TERTULLIAN’S VARIATIONS 293 


see in them, as some would have us do, a proof of the evo- 
lution of the episcopate in Tertullian’s age, and of audacious 
pretensions set up by the Bishop of Rome. It is Tertullian 
who is the revolutionary. 

For, in the first place, he reduces episcopacy to a mere 
function of discipline, of police. In the second place—and 
this he does even in his Catholic works—he extols the rule 
of faith, as though it could be preserved without the help of 
a magisteriwm : unlike Irenzeus who insisted on the Apostolic 
magisteriwm and on the charism of truth entrusted to bishops, 
Tertullian comes, ultimately, to proclaim the Paraclete as 
“ solus a Christo magister et dicendus et verendus”; and 
this substitution is a novelty, since—as we have seen all 
through the history of the early Church, even at its very 
beginning—the teaching function of presbyters and of bishops 
was essentially connected with their office. In the third place, 
Tertullian distinguishes in the Church an wmpervwm and a 
ministerium: bishops are servants, the imperium belongs 
to the Spirit, so that, the Spirit governing the Church, the 
episcopate has hardly any place left for it i the Church— 
which is surely a paradox. In the fourth place, Tertullian 
denies to the episcopate any potestas inherited from the 
Apostles: in his eyes, any potestas is a spiritual gift of the 
Paraclete. This is another paradox in view of the affirma- 
tions of the ‘‘ Pastoral Epistles,” the ‘‘ Didaché,” and the 
letters of Clement of Rome and St. Ignatius on the powers 
of Order, which are also essential to the hierarchy.  Fifthly, 
Tertullian will not admit that a Church is realized, so to 
speak, in its bishop: for him the bishop does not make the 
unity of his Church, the Spirit alone makes the Church: 
“non Ecclesia numerus episcoporum”: another paradox for 
those who bear in mind how often the opposite is affirmed 
in the texts anterior to Tertullian.1 


1 Harnack, loc. cit., in his endeavour to prove that the episcopal 
prestige grew exceedingly during the first third of the third century, re- 
fers us to the edict of persecution of Maximinus in 235, directed not 
against all Christians indiscriminately, but only against bishops, as alone 
answerable for the new religion (Euszs. ‘‘ H. E.” vi. 28). Harnack for- 
gets the bishops who suffered during the second century—St. Ignatius 
and St. Polycarp for instance ; he forgets that scene of Polycarp’s martyr- 
dom, when the heathen populace of Smyrna ask for Polycarp by name 


294 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


It is very easy, indeed, to choose between Callistus and 
Tertullian: Callistus introduces no new notion of the 
Church, when he proclaims the notion of an ecclesiastical 
hierarchy, in which each bishop is the head of his own 
Church, and the Church is the numerus episcoporwm. 
Novelty is on the side of Tertullian who, to find a place for 
the ‘‘new prophecy” in the long-established and traditional 
ecclesiastical system, overturns it all, and demands that the 
‘spirituals ’’ shall take precedence of the clergy, and the 
Spirit alone be permitted to speak and rule. ‘Tertullian’s 
contemporaries must certainly have looked upon this chimera 
as preposterous. 


(‘‘ Martyr. Polyc.” 3) and that other scene, when, on seeing Polycarp in 
chains, the same populace exclaim: ‘‘This is the teacher of Asia, the 
father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods, he who has been 
teaching many not to sacrifice, or to worship the gods”. The prestige of 
the Bishop of Smyrna, in the year 155, seems to be just as great as that 
of the Bishop of Carthage a century later. 


CHAPTER VII. 
ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY. 


Wuen, from Christians like Ireneus and Tertullian, we 
come to Origen, we feel ourselves in a different atmosphere. 
We are witnessing the growth of Hellenic culture in Chris- 
tianity. 

Clement had opened out the way upon which Origen now 
enters with such distinction. ‘‘Greek philosophy,’ says 
Origen, has its falsehoods, and also some elements of truth 
‘““not to be lightly esteemed”: St. Paul had already ‘“‘ seen 
a certain grandeur in the words of the world’s wisdom”’.! 
On the other band, the Word of Jesus has spread all over 
the inhabited world; it has conquered kings and leaders of 
armies, archons of cities, soldiers and citizens: no obstacle 
has been able to check its advance, for it is the word of 
God, more powerful than all its opponents, more powerful 
than Greeks and barbarians: it has converted to the religion 
that is according to God thousands and thousands of souls. 
It is no wonder that, among all these converts, the simple 
and uneducated should exceed in number the learned. But” 
from this to infer—as Celsus does—that a doctrine within 
the reach of every human soul is a doctrine fit only for the 
simple, and that just because of its simplicity it is not cap- 
able of being justified by reason, is to insult it gratuitously.” 


1 OriGEN, ‘‘ Contra Celsum,” praef. 1. 5 (‘‘P. G.” vol. xt. col. 648). 
? Ibid. τ. 27 (““Ῥ, G.” x1. 712): . . . οἴεται εἶναι ἰδιωτικὴν καὶ διὰ τὸ 
ἰδιωτικὸν καὶ οὐδαμῶς ἐν λόγοις δυνατόν, ἰδιωτῶν μόνων κρατήσασαν. Trenseus 
had already noted that this was one of the charges brought by the Gnostic 
leaders against the Church. Clement of Alexandria mentions it also as a 
reproach addressed to Christianity by the sophists of his time. ‘‘Stromata,” 
1, 3(“ P. G.” vin. 712). Evidently it was a common thing in the cultivated 
circles of the time to jeer at the intellectual shortcomings of the Christians ; 
295 


296 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


The proof of this is in the fact that, if any one comes to us 
from the Greek ‘“‘dogmas”’ and schools of learning, he per- 
ceives not only that our faith is true, but also—which is 
still better—that it is susceptible of a ‘‘ Greek demonstra- 


tion”. ‘‘It must be said, however,’ Origen adds immedi- 
ately, ‘“‘ that our faith has a demonstration of its own, more 
divine than any established by Greek dialectics”: viz. a 


demonstration by means of prophecies and miracles. 
Dialectics will cure learned men of their errors. Hence we 
say to no one, not even to the simple: ‘‘See that none of 
you lay hold of knowledge’; nor do we say that ‘ knowledge 
is an evil’; nor are we mad enough to say that ‘knowledge 
causes men to lose their sanity of mind’. We would not 
even say that any one ever perished through wisdom; we 
give instruction, but we never say: ‘Believe me,’ but: 
‘Believe the God of all things, and believe Jesus the giver 
of instruction concerning Him’.”? 

This is indeed a new language—absolutely new, and bold 
in its novelty. Origen is not afraid to speak of science and 
dialectics and philosophy, even of gnosis—and let us not for- 
get that Greek philosophy was the encyclopedia of the time 
for all schools and scholars indiscriminately. Origen, self- 
taught, eclectic, claims for Christianity the right to make 
use of this intellectual storehouse for its own benefit. He 
writes: ‘All that the sons [disciples] of the philosophers are 
wont to say about geometry and music, grammar, rhetoric 
and astronomy, as natural attendants on philosophy, we say 
about philosophy itself, in its relation to Christianity.” ® 


(ro βάρβαρον ev παιδείᾳ, are the words of Clement). Cf. ‘‘Stromat.” 11. 2 
(“Ῥ. G.” vir. 940). 

1“¢ Contra Cels.” 1. 2 (x1. 656): λεκτέον ὅτι ἐστί τις οἰκεία ἀπόδειξις TOU 
λόγου, θειοτέρα παρὰ τὴν ἀπὸ διαλεκτικῆς ἑλληνικήν. Origen speaks of a 
Christian ἀπὸ ἑλληνικῶν δογμάτων καὶ γυμνασίων ἐλθών. 

5 Ibid. τιτ. 75 (xt. 1020): οὐ λέγομεν, ὁρᾶτε μὴ ποτέ τις ὑμῶν ἐπιστήμης 
ἐπιλάβηται, οὐδὲ φάσκομεν ὅτι κακόν ἐστιν ἐπιστήμη οὐδὲ μεμήναμεν ἵν᾽ 
εἴπωμεν ὅτι γνῶσις σφάλλει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους κιτ.λ. Cf. ibid. 47 and 48 
(xr. 981). The same is said by CLEMENT, ‘‘ Stromat.” vi. 10 (1x. 301). 

5" ἐς Kpistula ad Gregor.” 1 (x1. 88). The same idea is in CLEMENT, 
‘*Stromata,” 1.2. At Rome, on the contrary, the former attitude still pre- 
vails about the same time. We must remember how Hippolytus (Euszs. 
“H. KE.” v. 28), like Tertullian, is shocked that some should admire Aristotle 
and use the syllogism. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 297 


The inspiration manifested in these thoughts reminds us 
of that which gave birth to the Jewish Alexandrian literature, 
and to the movement of Hellenistic-Jewish thought to which 
Philo belongs. Still, we must be careful not to overlook the 
deep-rooted and firm tradition in the midst of which this new 
spirit makes its appearance. It has been said that ““ 1 all 
appearances are not deceptive, the Alexandrian Church . 
was, up to the time of Septimius Severus, pursuing a path of 
development which, left to itself, would not have led to 
Catholicism, but, in the most favourable circumstances, to a 
parallel form”’’.! Unfortunately, history records little about 
the Church of Alexandria in the first two centuries; but, as 
soon as it does record something, through the writings of 
Clement and Origen, we see Catholicism established at Alex- 
andria on the same foundations as elsewhere: why then 
maintain that this Alexandrian Catholicism was something 
new,’ something that began only in the first half of the 


1 Harnacg, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. 1, p. 481. 

? HaRNack, ibid., quotes but one fact in support of his supposition. 
Eusesius (‘‘H. E.” vr. 2, 15-14) relates that Origen, who happened to 
be in very poor circumstances, was given hospitality by a lady of rank in 
Alexandria, who ‘‘ lodged and entertained in her house, besides Origen, 
then a young man, a famous heretic”. The latter, whose name was Paul, 
came from Antioch. Harnack, whom we have just quoted, continues as 
follows: ‘*The lectures on doctrine delivered by this heretic and the 
conventicles over which he presided were attended by a μύριον πλῆθος οὐ 
μόνον αἱρετικῶν ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡμετέρων [a large crowd, not only of heretics, but 
of our own people also]. This is a valuable piece of information which 
reveals to us a state of things in Alexandria that would have been im- 
possible in Rome at the same period.” No, we may reply, this piece of 
information attests merely the well-known levity of the ‘‘ respectable 
people ” of Alexandria, who were attracted by the eloquence of this heretic. 
As to the question of orthodoxy, we see, from the sequel of the narrative, 
that it existed at Alexandria just as at Rome. In point of fact—to quote 
the words of Eusebius—‘‘ Origen could never be induced to join with him 
[Paul] in prayer ; for, although then a boy, he held the rule of the Church 
(οὐδὲ πώποτε προὐτράπη κατὰ THY εὐχὴν αὐτῷ συστῆναι, φυλάττων ἐξέτι παιδὸς 
κανόνα ἐκκλησίας), and abominated, as he somewhere expresses it, heretical 
teachings (βελυττόμενός τε, ὡς αὐτῷ ῥήματί φησί που αὐτός, Tas τῶν αἱρέσεων 
διδασκαλίας). This detail of Origen’s childhood (he was born about the 
year 182) shows that, before the end of the second century, the genuine 
Christians of Alexandria would suffer no compromise in what belongs to 
the ecclesiastical rule of faith. See the similar declarations of Dionysius, 
Bishop of Alexandria, Eusms. “Ἢ. EK.” vit. 7. 


298 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


third century? Let us not separate the Hellenic spirit of 
our Alexandrian doctors from their Catholicism and from 
what gives them their fitting place in the κοινὴ ἕνωσις, in 
that ecclesiastical unity of which we shall find all the dis- 
tinctive features in the works of Origen. 
ἘΠῚ 

As a matter of fact, in the eyes of Origen, the Church is 
not a school open to all, and thus differs from the schools of 
philosophy where ‘‘the philosophers discuss in public and 
do not pick and choose their hearers, but he who likes stands 
and listens.” Far from it! or the Christians try, as far 
as possible, ‘“‘the souls of those who wish to become their 
hearers”’: they previously instruct them in private, and 
only when they deem them sufficiently prepared do they 
bring them into their assembly (εἰς τὸ κοινόν), although even 
then they distinguish between the true disciples and those 
who have not yet received the sign of purification: for it is 
thus that Origen, speaking to Celsus, designates baptism.! 
Among the Christians there are special officers whose duty 
it is to make inquiries into the conduct of applicants for 
initiation, to set aside men of irregular lives, and to make 
the good still better. ‘The practice of the Christians is the 
same with those [of their brethren] who sin, especially with 
the unchaste: they exclude them from their assembly:” ? 
The Pythagoreans erect cenotaphs to those who have given 
up their philosophy, because they treat them as dead ; ‘‘ but 
the Christians lament as dead those who have been van- 
quished by impurity or any other sin, because they are lost 
and dead to God; but (Gf they manifest a true conversion) 
they receive them back as risen from the dead, though after 
a longer probation than in the case of those who are admitted 
for the first time; yet never do they admit to any charge or 
authority in the Church of God those who, after once pro- 
fessing the Gospel, have lapsed and fallen.” ὅ 

This does not mean, however, that the Church consists 


“Contra Cels,” mr. 51 (x1. 988): τὸ σύμβολον τοῦ ἀποκεκαθάρθαι. 

2 Ibid. : ods ἀπελαύνουσι τοῦ κοίνου. 

5 Ibid. : εἰς οὐδεμίαν ἀρχὴν καὶ προστασίαν τῆς λεγομένης ἐκκλησίας τοῦ 
θεοῦ καταλέγοντες... . On the holiness of the Church, see “6 Orat.” 
20 (x1. 477). 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 299 


of saints only. The Church is a treasure-house that con- \ 
tains vessels of mercy and vessels of wrath, a granary 
where straw and wheat are gathered in together, a net 
that brings to the surface fishes that must be cast aside 
and fishes that are excellent... The Christian community 
as a whole has become exceedingly lukewarm, nor must 
we judge it from the increasing number of its crowds. 
Where are the martyrs of old? Formerly, when returning 
from the cemeteries whither we had taken the bodies of our 
martyrs, ‘‘from the whole assembly no lament arose”. Cate- 
chumens were instructed by the sight itself of the sufferings 
of the martyrs or of the death of the confessors. ‘‘ Hew 
indeed were the faithful then, but they were truly faithful.” 
Now that we are so many, the word of Jesus is proved to 
be true, which says: ‘‘ Many are called, few are chosen’’.” 
Many who are indifferent are now found in our midst, 
mingled with the sinners. The faithful no longer come 
punctually to the liturgical synaxes: hardly do they come 
even on feast days, and when they do come, it is not so 
much to hear the word, as for the sake of diversion, and of 
the spectacle.* 

The ecclesiastical ordo comprises three degrees:* the 
deacons, the priests, the bishop. While the obligation of 
each towards the Church is grave, the bishop’s obligation 


1“¢Tn Ierem. Homil.” xx. 3 (xu. 536). 

2 Tbid. tv. 3 (x1. 289). As to the wonderful multiplication of Chris- 
tians as early as the end of the second century, see the sarcastic com- 
ment of Celsus, in ‘‘ Contra Celsum,” Iv. 29 (x1. 1060). 

3**Tn Genes. Homil.” x. 1 (x1. 215): ‘‘ Vix festis diebus ad ecclesiam 
proceditis, et hoc non tam desiderio verbi, quam studio solemnitatis et 
publicae quodammodo remissionis obtentu. Quid igitur ego faciam, cui 
dispensatio verbi credita est?” 

4In this study of Greek ecclesiology during the first half of the 
third century, I shall not use the so-called Canons of Hippolytus or the 
document designated generally by German scholars the ‘‘ Aegyptische 
Kirchenordnung.” Most critics believe with Funk (against Achelis and 
Harnack) that these two documents depend on the ‘‘ Apostolic Constitu- 
tions,’ which must belong to about the year 400. Nor shall I appeal, 
either, to the ‘‘ Didascalia apostolorum,” although it may be ascribed 
very probably to the third century, probably to the second half of the 
third century. (Whether it comes from Antioch or from Jerusalem, is 
uncertain.) 


900 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


is graver than that of any other, and he will be held ac- 
countable by the ‘‘Saviour of the whole Church”! The 
bishop has sovereignty over both the priests and the faith- 
ful. He must be severe, and woe to his sheep, if he is 
over lenient towards sinners, if he is afraid of what they 
may say, if he hesitates to rebuke them, and, if need be, to 
banish them from the Church. 

‘Dum uni parcunt, universae ecclesiae moliuntur interi- 

tum. Quae ista bonitas? quae ista misericordia est, uni 
parcere et omnes in discrimen adducere? Polluitur enim ex 
uno peccatore populus. Sicut ex una ove morbida grex 
universus inficitur, sic etiam uno vel fornicante, vel aliud 
quodcumque sceleris committente, plebs universa polluitur. 
Kt ideo observemus nos invicem et uniuscuiusque conversatio 
nota sit, maxime sacerdotibus et ministris. Nec putent se 
recte dicere: Quid hoc ad me spectat si alius male agit ? 
Tale ergo est quod [dicunt] 11 qui ecclesiis praesunt, non 
cogitantes quia unum corpus sumus omnes qui credimus, 
unum deum habentes qui nos in unitate constringit et 
continet, Christum, cuius corporis tu qui ecclesiae praesides 
oculus es, propterea utique ut omnia circumspicias, omnia 
circumlustres, etiam ventura praevideas. Pastor es, vides 
oviculas Domini ignaras periculi ferri ad praecipitia et per 
praerupta pendere, non occurris? non revocas? non saltem 
voce cohibes et correptionis clamore deterres Ὁ ὃ 

The Church, then, is a tangible unity: she is a body of 
which the bishop is the eye, and the right hand: he is 
ἐπίσκοπος that he may watch, he is a pastor, he must be 
zealous and vigilant especially as regards sinners. ‘This is 
the counterpart to the diatribes of Tertullian, the Montanist. 

There is for the sinner a hard and toilsome penance, in 
which he waters his couch with his tears and is not ashamed 
to make his sin known to the bishop. After the manner of 


1“ De Orat.” 28 (x1. 524): . . . ὀφειλή, καὶ ἑτέρα διακόνου, καὶ ἄλλη 
πρεσβυτέρου, καὶ ἐπισκόπου δὲ ὀφειλὴ βαρυτάτη ἐστὶν ἀπαιτουμένη ὑπὸ τοῦ 
τῆς ὅλης ἐκκλησίας σωτῆρος (ita KOETSCHAU). 

2“*Tn Terem. Homil.” x1. 3 (χππι. 369): ὁ τὴν πάντων ἡμῶν ἐγκεχει- 
ρισμένος ἀρχὴν αὐτὴν τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικήν. 

* “ΩΤ Tes. Nave Homil.” vir. 6 (xr. 862). 

4° Tn Levit. Homil.” τι. 4 (xi. 448): “. . . Non erubescit sacer- 
doti Domini indicare peccatum suum ”. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 301 


the high priest of old, as prescribed in Leviticus, it belongs 
to the bishop to offer up to God the sacrifice of propitiation 
for the sin! He has the power to exclude the sinner 
from the Church: ‘Si quis nostrum peccaverit abiectus est, 
etiamsi non abiciatur ab episcopo, sive quod lateat, sive 
quod interdum ad gratiam wdicetur, erectus est tamen ipsa 
conscientia peccatr.”.? In allusion to the words in which 
St. Paul declares that he delivers over to Satan the incestuous 
Christian of Corinth, Origen observes that the Apostles are 
not the only ones who have this power, since a like punish- 
ment can be inflicted “per eos qui ecclesiae praesident 
et potestatem habent non solum solvendi, sed et ligands.” * 
For “in ecclesiis Christi consuetudo tenuit talis, ut qui 
manifest. sunt in magnis delictis eiciantur ab oratione 
commun”! 

The mission of every Christian is, indeed, to bring all 
mankind to the kingdom of God; but this is preeminently 
the mission of the bishops, priests and deacons: ‘‘ Maaime. 
hoe faciunt qua videntur in ecclesia clariores, quales sunt 
episcopr, presbyteri, diaconi,” and this duty they fulfil, by 
leading a life of virtue. Evil-living pastors, mercenaries, 
turn away from the kingdom those who were advancing 
towards it, particularly when they excommunicate unjustly, 
through jealousy or anger, members who are at times much 
better than they, and who can oppose only patience to these 
tyrannical (6665. 


'**Tn Levit. Homil.” v. 4 (454): ““ Discant sacerdotes Domini qui 
ecclesiis praesunt quia pars eis data est cum his quorum delicta repropiti- 
averint”’. Cf. ibid. νι. 12 (464-5). 

? Ibid. xi. 6 (542). Cf. xiv. 2 (553): ““ Peccavit aliquis fidelium : 
iste etiamsi nondum abiciatur per episcopi sententiam, iam tamen per 
ipsum peccatum quod admisit eiectus est; et quamvis intret ecclesiam 
tamen eiectus est, et foris est, segregatus a consortio et unanimitate 
fidelium. Of. ibid. 5 (556): ‘‘Interdum fit ut aliquis non recto iudicio 
eorum qui praesunt ecclesiae depellatur, et foras mittatur.” Cf. “In 
Terem. Homil.” vir. 3. (xm. 333) ; ibid. x1. 5 (385). 

*“ In Judic. Homil.” τι. 5 (xi. 961). 

4 Τὴ Matt. Comment. ser.” 89 (xm. 1740). Cf. “Τὰ Levit. 
Homil.” xtv. 2 (xi. 553). 

ἢ [bid. 14 (xm. 1620): “©. . . maxime quando... non propter pec- 
cata quae faciunt excommunicant quosdam, sed propter aliquem zelum et 
contentionem ... , vincentes sua patientia et longanimitate tyrannides 
eorum.” 


902 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Let bishops be on their guard not to misuse their dis- 
cretionary authority of cutting off a Christian from com- 
munion, depriving him of the bread and of the chalice, 
excluding him from the house of God which is the Church,}! 
and banishing him from the Church his fatherland.? 

The bishop has the administration of charity ; he is the 
innkeeper to whom the good Samaritan gives two pence, 
that the wounded man whom he has picked up on the way 
may have all the necessary care.2 Whoever is called to the 
episcopate ‘‘ non ad principatum vocatur, sed ad servitutem 
totius ecclesiae’”’.* Woe to him if, prompted by the love 
of riches, he takes for himself the gifts offered to God,* and 
the money contributed by the faithful for the needs of the 
poor, and the support of the clergy.® 

Origen shows us the seat apart of the bishop and of 
his priests, and below them the deacons standing, ready 


1“ Comment. in Joan.” xxvitt. 4 (χιν. 688): οὐ παντὶ καθήκει μὴ 
χρῆσθαι τῷ ἄρτῳ καὶ μὴ πίνειν ἐκ τοῦ ποτηρίου, Kal μὴ πόρρω εἶναι TOU οἴκου 
θεοῦ καὶ τῆς ἐκκλησίας. 

2**TIn Psalm. xxxvu. Homil.” 1. 6 (xm. 1380): “‘Iste si decidat de 
patria sua, id est de ecclesia, in insulam quamdam atque in horrentes sco- 
pulos quae peccati sedes est propellatur ”. 

3‘¢Comment. in Rom.” 1x. 31 (xiv. 1231): ‘‘. . . stabulario. . . 
qui ecclesiae praeest”’. 

4“¢Tn Is. Homil.” vr. 1 (xi. 239). 

5“* Comment. in Rom.” τι. 11 (xtv. 897): ‘‘ Quod si, ut nonnunquam 
fieri solet, munera oblata Deo et stipem in usus pauperum datam, ad rop- 
pria lucra converterit. . . .” Concerning the charitable services rendered 
by the Church see ‘‘ Comment. in Rom.” 1x. 2 (x1v. 1212). ““ Comment. 
in Matt.” x1. 9 (xm. 932): τὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας γλωσσόκομον. ‘In Levit. 
Homil.” rv. 6 (x1. 481): ‘‘ Vota et munera quae in ecclesiis Dei ad usus 
sanctorum, et ministerium sacerdotum, vel quae ob necessitatem pau- 
perum, a devotis et religiosis mentibus offeruntur”. By vota we must 
understand here what the faithful vow to give to the Church, as is ex- 
plained in ‘‘ Homil.” x1. 1 (ibid. 531). Clement of Alexandria intimates 
that some became Christians, because once in the ranks of the Christian 
community they were sure to be safe from destitution, Christianity being 
a powerful charitable institution. ‘‘Stromat.” 1. 1 (‘‘P.G.” vol. vim. 
col. 693 A.). 

6 In Num. Homil.” x1. 2 (xir. 644). To the bishop also belongs the 
administration of the ecclesiastical property, which then consisted of the 
Christian cemeteries. Cf. ‘‘ Philosophoumena,” 1x. 12 (‘‘P. G,” xvi. 
3383). 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 303 


to minister at the divine service.' We are seated higher 
than you, it is true—says Origen to his hearers —and 
some of the faithful aim at reaching the same degree, but 
do not believe that it suffices to belong to the clergy to be 
saved: many even among the priests lose their own souls, 
and many of the laity will be happier; for what truly matters, 
is not to have one’s seat in the presbytervwm, but to live 
worthy of that station.? 

The prince (ὁ ἡγούμενος), for ‘‘ this name, I believe, should 
be given to him who in the Churches is called bishop”’ ; the 
prince must be the servant of servants, according to the 
command left us by the Word of God. On the contrary, 
we so act ‘‘that at times we exceed in pride the wicked 
princes of the nations, and we all but surround ourselves, 
like kings, with bodyguards. We are formidable, inaccessible, 
especially to the poor. When some one comes to us and 
makes a request, we are more haughty than are the most 
cruel tyrants and princes towards their supplicants. This 
can be seen in many famous Churches, chiefly in those of 
the largest cities.” ὃ 

Those who prove themselves unworthy of ecclesiastical 
dignities, can certainly be deprived of them. A Church is 
like a city, which can strike the name of a decurion off the 
roll of its Curia, just as it can condemn to exile such or such 


1“ Tn Cantic.” 1. (x1. 107) : ““ Vidit et sedem puerorum eius. Kecle- 
siasticum puto ordinem dicit, qui in episcopatus vel presbyterii sedibus 
habetur. Vidit et ordinationes sive stationes ministrorum eius. Diacon- 
orum, ut mihi videtur, ordinem memorat astantium divino ministerio.” 

5. “6 In Ierem. Homil.” xt. 3: δοκοῦμεν εἷναι ἀπὸ κλήρου τινὸς mpoxa- 
θεζόμενοι ὑμῶν... Τὸ ὠφελοῦν οὐκ αὐτὸ τὸ καθέζεσθαι ἐν πρεσβυτερίῳ 
ἐστίν, ἀλλὰ τὸ βιοῦν ἀξίως τοῦ τόπου... . Πλεῖον ἐγὼ ἀπαιτοῦμαι παρὰ τὸν 
διάκονον, πλεῖον ὁ διάκονος παρὰ τὸν λαικόν. As to the meaning of the 
word τόπος, cf. ap. Euses. ‘‘ H. EK.” νι. 11, 3, the letter of Alexander, 
Bishop of Jerusalem, to the Christians of Arsinoé. 

8 ἐς Comment. in Matt.” xv. 8 (x1. 1393). Cf. “In Matt. Comment.” 
ser. 61 (xm. 1695). In these words, which are particularly harsh, some 
have seen an acrimonious allusion to the Roman Church: a view which, 
it is almost unnecessary to say, has not failed to obtain the full approval 
of the Old Catholics, of Langen for instance. The bishops of Alexandria 
and the bishops of Antioch might lay themselves open, just as well, to 
similar criticisms ; consider, for instance, the formal charges of pride made 
against Paul of Samosata. 


804 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


of its citizens: “ Infamia est a populo Dei et ecclesia separari : 
dedecus est in ecclesia surgere de consessu presbyterti, provicr 
de diaconatus gradu’ + 

The people have the right to assist at the election of 
their bishop, for they should convince themselves on that day, 
that the most learned and holy candidate is chosen.2 We 
know, from other sources, that the neighbouring bishops 
take part in the election of a new bishop.® 

Between the ordo, which consists of the bishop, priests 
and deacons on the one hand, and of the people, which con- 
sists of the faithful (πιστοῦ and the catechumens on the 
other, Origen does not mention any clerics as intermediaries.‘ 
He speaks of virgins and of abstinents,° and gives us to under- 
stand that virginity and asceticism are a profession. He 
speaks of widows, and also of virgins, as dedicated to the 
service of the Church, like the priests, the deacons, and 
the bishop.’ Origen protests against a protracted stay in 
the ranks of the catechumens,* for, in truth, whoever is 
born again through divine baptism is introduced into Para- 
4156, 1.6. into the Church.? 

Whenever he is led to speak of the clergy of his age, 
Origen is extremely severe. A pessimistic preacher, he does 
not fear to denounce the faults of the clergy even before 
the assembly of the faithful. He compares them to the 
Pharisees who love to be called Rabbis and claim the first 


1 Τὴ Ezech. Homil.” x. 1 (xm. 740): ‘‘ Poteris intellegere quod 
dicitur, si consideraveris quae cotidie in civitatibus fiunt. Inhonoratio 
civi est de patria sua exulare, et infamia decurioni eradi de albo 
CULIAG, τ πεν ον 

2° In Levit. Homil.” vi. 5 (χπι. 469): “ Requiritur in ordinando 
sacerdote et praesentia populi. . . . Ille eligitur ad sacerdotium, et hoc 
adstante populo ”. 

5’ Kuses. “H. KE.” vi. 11, 2, where the bishops whose dioceses are 
near Jerusalem choose a coadjutor for the aged Bishop of Jerusalem, 
Narcissus. 

4“Tn Ierem. Homil.” xrv. 4. 

>“ Comment. in Rom.” 1. 2 (xtv. 841). Cf. rx. 1 (1205). 

ὁ “ἐς Contra Celsum,” v. 49 (x1. 1257). 

7 Comment. in Rom.” vir. 10 (1189). 

8“Tn Jes. Nave Homil.” rx. 9 (x1. 878). Cf. ‘Comment. in Rom.” 
1. 13 (xiv. 900). ‘In Luc. Homil.’ viz, (x11. 1819). 

9. “9 Τὴ Genes. Selecta ” (x11. 100), 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 305 


seats. Avaricious and hypocritical men intrigue to become 
deacons ; when they have become deacons, they fight among 
themselves to get the first seats, those of the priests; and 
when they are priests, they cabal to be made bishops. How 
far they are from the manners of the early Church, ‘ cwelestes 
primitivorum ecclesias!”! ‘Then the arrogance of their re- 
latives becomes simply unbearable, for great is their pride if 
they should have for father or grandfather one “‘ who has 
been honoured in the Church with the precedency of the 
episcopal throne, or with the dignity of the presbyterate, or 
of the diaconate”.? In the temple of Jerusalem, which is 
also the Church, sellers are always to be found, ‘‘ who have 
need of Jesus to scourge them and overturn their tables ᾽.3 
The worst Temple-vendors are those bishops and priests who, 
on election days, sell the Churches to men that are unworthy.* 

These ecclesiastical elections seem to be a stone of scandal 
to Origen: he thinks of the Apostles, who, for the choice of 
Matthias, leave the whole matter in the hands of God, by 
prayer and by the drawing of lots; and yet they are the 
Apostles, “qui utique multo sapientiores erant quam vi qui 
nune episcopos vel presbyteros vel diaconos ordinant’’.’ 
Even Moses did not take upon himself to appoint his suc- 
cessor ; and still he had sons and nephews: a striking example 
for the ecclesiarum principes, which should deter them from 
appointing in their wills their relatives for their successors 
and making the ecclesiastical dignity an inheritance; a strik- 
ing example for the people also, who often think they may 
intervene in the appointment of the bishop, by their repeated 
outcries—outcries that are dictated by venality or by passion.° 

*“*Tn Matt. Comment.” ser. 11 (xi. 1616). 

***Comment. in Matt.” xv. 26 (xin. 1829): ἐπὰν τύχῃ πατράσιν 
ἐπαυγεῖν καὶ ΤΟΥ ΤΟΙΣ προεδρίας Ἰξιωμένοις € εν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἐ ἐπισκοπικοῦ θρόνου 
ἢ πρεσβυτερίου τιμῆς ἢ Hee PaaS eis TOV λαὸν τοῦ θεοῦ. 

*** Comment. in Ioan.” x. 16 (χιν. 348). Cf. for the same compari- 
son in ‘‘Comment. in Matt.” xvr. 22 (xu. 1448). As to the expulsion 
of scandalous bishops, see ‘“‘ In Exod. Homil.” x. 4 (x1. 373). 

***Comment. in Matt.” χνι. 22 (xr. 1452): of ras πρωτοκαθεδρίας 
πεπιστευμένοι τοῦ λαοῦ ἐπίσκοποι καὶ πρεσβύτεροι, καὶ ὡσπερεὶ ἀποδιδόμενοι 
ὅλας ἐκκλησίας οἷς οὐ χρὴ καὶ καθιστάντες ods οὐ δεῖ ὦ ἄρχοντας. 

*“Tn Tes. Nave Homil.” xxi. 2 (x11. 935). 

°“In Num. Homil.” xxi. 4 (xm. 744): “ Discant Ecclesiae principes 
successores sibi non eos qui consanguinitate generis iuncti sunt, nec qui 


20 


900 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Do we not see, in some Churches, piety treated as an 
article of trade, and the Gospel, as a means of getting rich ? 
If Jesus wept over Jerusalem, how much greater reason will 
He have to weep over the Church, the house of prayer, 
which luxury and lucre have made a den of thieves—‘‘ and 
would to God that it were not the leaders of the people who 
have done it!”? 

Origen’s severity towards the clergy finds its explana- 
tion in the high idea he has of their eminent and divinely 
appointed function. For, if the Church is an edifice, 
the bishops and priests are its roof, made of cedar and 
cypress: but cypresses are hardy and sweet-smelling trees, 
and cedars are incorruptible and sweet-smelling also: a 
symbol of the virtue and knowledge which priests and 
bishops should possess.? If men demand of the clergy that it 
should judge itself first, it is because it has a mission to judge 
the people: ‘“‘Thinkest thou... that thou shalt escape 
the judgment of God?” says St. Paul, not to the princes of 
this earth, nor to the kings of this world, but to the leaders 
and princes of the Churches, 1.6. to bishops, priests, and 
deacons; to these he says that they must not think they 
will escape the judgment of God, if they do themselves 
what they judge and condemn others for doing.” * Othoniel 
was made judge over Israel because the Holy Spirit was 
with him and because he judged Israel through the Holy 
Spirit: “‘ Sunt ergo omnium hodie ecclesiarum quae sunt 
sub caelo quamplurimi wdices, quibus wudicoum non solum 
rerum gestarum datum est sed et antmarum : verwm nescio 
si qui tales Ecclesiae iudices sunt quos dignos factet Deus 


carnis propinquitate sociantur, testamento signare, neque haereditarium 
tradere Ecclesiae principatum ”’. 

1“ Comment. in Matt.” xvi. 21 (xi. 1445). 

3 ἐς Τῇ Cantic. lib.” m1. (xm. 149). Cf. “ In Genes. Homil.” xvit. 6 
(xi. 259). 

3. “ὁ Comment. in Rom.” τι. 2 (xiv. 873): ‘‘ Ecclesiarum rectoribus et 
principibus loquitur, his videlicet qui iudicant eos qui intus sunt, id est 
episcopis vel presbyteris et diaconibus . . . si ea committant ipsi de 
quibus alios iudicant et condemnant. ‘‘In KEzech. hom.” v. 4: ‘* Quid 
mihi prodest quia prior sedeo in cathedra resupinus, honorem maioris ac- 
cipio, nec possum habere dignitate mea opera condigna ?” 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 307 


Spiritu sancto replerr.”! Let the Pontiff follow the ex- 
ample of Moses and Aaron, and not leave the Lord’s taber- 
nacle. Let the Pontiff meditate on Holy Scripture and in- 
struct the people. Let him teach what he has learned from 
God, and received from the Holy Ghost.” 

Origen—we may notice—asks that the bishops may be 
worthy to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Here we come to 
a very special point of doctrine, to which Origen returns 
several times. The Churches are too wealthy and ecclesiasti- 
cal dignities too greedily sought after, for hypocrisy not to 
be constantly on the increase :— 

‘Sunt quidam et martyri simulatores; quidam autem 
episcopatus, vel presbyteratus, vel diaconatus, vel ecclesias- 
ticae scientiae et doctrinae, tantum personas et ostentationem 
virtutum habentes, vere autem sunt inimici earumdem vir- 
tutum quas simulant.” ὃ 

We can just understand how there can be fictitious 
martyrs; but how can true bishops simulate the episcopate, 
true priests, the priesthood, and true deacons, the diaconate ? 
They merely play a part, Origen tells us, they dislike the 
virtues they simulate: is it because their unworthiness might 
deprive them of the powers of their order ? 

Elsewhere, when speaking of the power of sanctification, 
attached to ‘‘ the word of God and prayer,’’ Origen uses the 
following expressions, that remind us of the sacramental 
liturgy :— 

“ Sanctificantur per verbum Dei et orationem [1 Tim. 


*“Tn Tudic. Homil.” mr. 3 (xm. 964). Cf. ‘‘Oracula Sibyllina,” τι. 
264-7. 

“Tn Levit. Homil.” vir. 2 (xu. 478). The points just noted may 
be compared with the following affirmations of Harnack: “The hier- 
archy has still no significance in Clement’s ecclesiology. Origen entirely 
agrees with Clement on this point. He also starts with the theory that 
the Church is essentially a heavenly Communion and a holy communion 
of believers, and he keeps this idea constantly before him. Again, like 
Clement, he cannot, when opposing heretics, refrain from identifying the 
Catholic Church, in so far as it is the Church of the true doctrine, with 
this invisible Church. But, also like Clement, he is far from having a 
hierarchical [conception of the Church]. ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 414. 
See also Brae, ‘‘ Christian Platonists,” p. 213. 

3 ** In Matt. Comment.” ser. 24 (x11. 1629). 

20 * 


908 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


τ. 5]... . Per orationem autem non cuiuscunque sanctifi- 
cantur, sed eorum qui levant puras manus sine ira et dis- 
ceptatione [1 Tim. rv. 8]. 

Does this mean—we ask again—that the impurity of 
the hands and hearts of priests and bishops renders ineffectual 
the Sacraments they administer? Cannot the Donatists 
claim Origen as one of their forerunners?” Before answer- 
ing this question, we had better read with care his com- 
mentary on the 71bi dubo claves regni caelorwm. 

This promise was made to Peter, ‘‘and to every one 
who is Peter’’.® ‘‘Heis worthy to receive the keys .. . 
who is so fortified against the gates of Hades that they do 
not prevail against him,” that he ‘‘ may open these gates to 
those who have been conquered by them”. ‘The Lord 
‘‘oives to those who are not conquered by the gates of Hades 
as many keys as there are virtues”’. 

“ But as those who claim the dignity of the episcopate * 
base their claim like Peter on these words, so as to say that 
they have received the keys of the kingdom of heaven from 
the Saviour, and that things bound by them, that 18 to say, 
condemned by them, are also bound in heaven, and that those 
which have obtained remission from them are also loosed in 
heaven®—we must say that they speak truly vf they do the 
deeds on account of which it was said to Peter: “ Thow art 
Peter” ; and «f they are such that wpon them the Church is 
built by Christ, and to them with good reason this word can 
be referred. For the gates of Hades ought not to prevail 
against him who wishes to bind or to loose. But «af he 18 
bound himself with the bonds of his sins, to no purpose does 
he bind or loose.” ὃ 

Does not this amount to saying that, if the bishop is a 


1“ Comment. in Rom.” 1x. 42 (xiv. 1249). 

2 Huet, ‘ Origeniana,” qu. xiv. (xvu1. 1075). 

>“ Comment. in Matt.” x1. 14 (xir. 1012): λέλεκται τῷ Πέτρῳ καὶ 
παντὶ Πέτρῳ κ.τ.λ. 

4 Ibid. (1013) : οἱ τὸν τόπον τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἐκδικοῦντες. 

5 Ibid. : τὰ ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἄφεσιν εἰληφότα. The word ἄφεσιν implies that 
it is a question of sins. 

6 Ibid. : εἰ δὲ σειραῖς τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων αὑτοῦ ἔσφιγκται μάτην καὶ δεσμεῖ 


καὶ λύει. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 309 


sinner, he cannot exercise effectually as regards sinners the 


power of the keys ?? 


* * 
* 


The Church possesses the right faith.? The heretics bear 
the name of Christians, and boast of imparting a doctrine of 
which they say the men of the Church are ignorant (quae 
latere ab ecclesiasticis dicwnt): but really they are thieves 
and adulterers—thieves who steal the vessels of the temple, 
adulterers who defile with their errors the chaste dogmas 
of the Church (casta et honesta Ecclesiae dogmata).® We 
strive to understand Holy Writ, not like Basilides, whom 
we abandon to his ungodliness, but ‘‘ secundum pretatem ec- 
clesiastici dogmatis”.* We perform the baptismal liturgy 
“secundum typum ecclesirs traditum”’.» We think “ secun- 
dum doctrinam ecclesiasticam”.® The true prophets of 
Christ are the teachers who “ ecclesiastice docent verbum”’. 
Elsewhere Origen speaks of the κήρυγμα ἐκκλησιαστικόν.ὃ 
He says of the articles of faith: ‘ Est et illud definitum in 


1 See in ‘‘ De Orat.’’ 28 (xz. 528), another confirmation of this infer- 
ence. He alone can forgive the sins committed against God, who is “‘ in- 
spired by Jesus like the Apostles” (ἐμπνευσθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ as οἱ ἀπόσ- 
roko.—an allusion to “ Joan.” xx. 29 : Accipite Spiritum sanctum, quorum 
remiseritis, etc.), and proves by his works that he has received the Holy 
Ghost, and has become spiritual (ὡς χωρήσας τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον καὶ γενόμενος 
πνευματικός). The power to forgive sins committed against God belongs 
“to the Apostles and to the pontifts, similar to the Apostles, according to 
the pattern of the great Pontiff’””—an allusion to Heb. v. 1. Then follows 
the well-known passage where Origen is astonished that some bishops claim 
the right to remit sins of idolatry, fornication and adultery. Cf. ‘‘ In 
Psalm.” xxxvit. ‘‘ Homil.” 1. 1 (xu. 1369 and 1371). 

2** Comment. in Rom.” 1. 19 (xtv. 870). 

5 Ibid. τι. 11 (898). The same thought is found in CLEMENT, “ Stro- 
mat.” vir. 16, quoted above. We must take into account the gravity of 
theft and adultery as estimated by the penitential discipline of those 
days. 

4 Ibid. v. 1 (1015). Katrrensuscn, vol. 0. pp. 194 and foll. on the 
place of the regula fidei in Origen. 

5 Ibid. v. 8 (1038). Cf. “In Epistul. ad Tit.” fragm. (1300): ““ ecclesi- 
astica regula”. ‘*‘Comment. in Ioan.” xi. 16 (xiv. 421): κανὼν τῆς 
ἐκκλησίας. Karrenpuscu, vol. τι. p. 143. 

ὁ. Tn Matt. Comment.” ser. 137 (x1m. 1787). 

τ Tbid. 47 (1669). 8 “ Periarchon,” 111. 1, 1 (x1. 249). 


910 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


ecclesiastica praecdicatione .. .} This praedicatio, this 
κήρυγμα, is the teaching which, through the succession of the 
bishops by whom it is preserved, comes down from the 
Apostles. Of this official teaching Origen gives the following 
definition which is at the beginning of the ‘‘ Periarchon ” but 
which we might think was taken from Ireneus: “ Cum multi 
sint qui se putant sentire quae Christi sunt, et nonnulli eorum 
diversa a prioribus sentiant—servetur ecclesiastica praedicatio 
per successionis ordinem ab apostolis tradita et usque ad 
praesens in ecclesiis permanens. Illa sola credenda est 
veritas quae in nullo ab ecclesiastica et apostolica discordat 
traditione.’”? 

Of each of the articles, on which the praedicatio eccles- 
iastica is plainly affirmative, one may say: “... de quo 
totius Ecclesiae una sententia est.?® Of a dogma, such as 
that of the resurrection of the body, Origen declares that it 
is TO βούλημα τῆς ἐκκλησίας τοῦ Χριστοῦ," asmuch as it 15 
like a law or a decree of the βουλή of a large city. The 
unity of faith makes the unity of Christendom, of that people 
“qua im sacramentis Christi confoederatus est” .® 

In all the expressions we have accentuated, the Church 
appears as the depositary of revealed truth: ecclesiastical 


1“ Periarchon,” 1. 1, 5 (118). The same expressions occur in ΠΗ. 
6 and 7. 5 

2 [bid. 1.1, 2 (x1. 116). Cf. ibid. τι. 11, 3 (345): “. . . secundum 
apostolorum sensum”. ‘In Genes. Homil.” τ. 6 (xu. 151): ‘‘ Christus 

. ex cuius lumine illuminata Ecclesia, ipsa etiam lux mundi efficitur 
... Christus quidem lux est apostolorum, apostoli vero lux mundi, 
ipsienim sunt . . . vera Ecclesia.” “Selecta in psalm.” cxxvi. (xm. 1641) : 
TOV οἶκον τοῦ θεοῦ, ὄντα ἐκκλησίαν αὐτοῦ, οἱ οἰκοδομοῦντες ἀπόστολοι Χριστοῦ 
καὶ οἱ τεταγμένοι ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ διδάσκαλοι, οὐ μάτην ἐκοπίασαν . . . Καὶ ἄλλως δὲ 
οἶκον οἰκοδομοῦσιν οὐ μετὰ κυρίου οἱ ἑτερόδοξοι, τὴν ἐκκλησίαν πονηρευομένων 

. Ὁμοίως καὶ ᾿ἸἸουδαῖο. We may notice in this last text an anti- 
climax dear to Origen : the ecclesiastic, the heterodox, the Jew. 

3 Ibid. 1, 8 (119). Cf. ibid. 7, 1 (171): “‘. . . secundum dogma 
nostrum id est Ecclesiae fidem.” ‘‘ In Genes. Homil.” m1. 2 (x1. 176) : 
‘* Alienum hoc est ab Ecclesiae fide.” ‘‘In Levit. Homil.” xv. 2 (xm. 
560): ‘* .. . fidei, quae muro ecclesiastici et apostolici dogmatis cincta 
est”. “Τὴ Num. Homil.” xxv. 4 (xi. 768): ‘‘ Quis non animetur pug- 
nare pro Kcclesia et resistere adversum inimicos veritatis, eos scilicet 
qui dogmata Ecclesiae oppugnare docent ?” 

4 ἐς Contra Cels.” v. 22 (σι. 1216). 

° «Tn Num. Homil,” xvi. 9 (xu. 701), 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 911 


preaching is synonymous with authentic faith, and the 
actual ecclesiastical preaching finds its justification in the 
fact that it is the tradition of the Apostles, transmitted 
in a direct line as an inheritance. This is also the theory 
of Irenswus, and even of the Greek writers of the second 
century, prior to Irenzeus.1 

The canon of the Scriptures is that which the Church 
guarantees. Thus, whilst the heresies have so many Gospels, 
the Church has four Gospels only. Origen knows indeed 
the “Gospel according to the Egyptians,” a ‘‘ Gospel of 
the Twelve Apostles,” a ‘‘ Gospel according to St. Thomas,” 
a ‘‘ Gospel according to St. Matthias,” and the gospel which 
Basilides was bold enough to compose and to which he gave his 
own name. But there are only four approved Gospels: 
“quatuor tantum euangelia sunt probata, ὁ quibus sub 
persona Domini et Salvatoris nostri proferenda sunt dog- 
mata.” Of all the gospels that are in circulation, ‘‘ nihil 
aliud probamus, nisi quod Ecclesia” .* 

Holy Scripture, is contained both in the Old and in the 
New Testament, and comes to an end with the books of the 
Apostles, after which there is no more Scripture. ΤῸ the 
canon now closed the Church adds nothing, not even a 
prophecy, but in this heretics do not imitate her: ‘‘ Sola 
Ecclesia neque subtrahit . . . neque addit quasi prophetiam 


1“ The theory that the bishops are successors of the Apostles, and 
possess an apostolic office, may be considered a Western one which was 
very slowly and gradually adopted in the East. . . . It is very important 
to note that the theory of the bishop’s office in determining the truth 
of ecclesiastical Christianity is completely unknown to Clement of 
Alexandria. . . . Origen in the main still held the same view as his 
predecessor. But numerous passages of his works and above all his 
own history show that in his day the episcopate had become very strong 
in Alexandria also, and had begun to claim the same attributes and rights 
as in the West. . . . Clement represents an earlier stage, whereas by 
Origen’s time the revolution has been completed.”” HaArnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” 
vol. τ΄, p. 403. We can now judge how far the facts agree with these 
statements. 

***Tn Luc. Homil.” τ. (xm. 1803). Cf. “In Matt. Comment.” ser. 
28 (1638): “. . . ecclesiarum canonem non requirentes”. On the 
well-defined character of Origen’s Biblical Canon, see BARDENHEWER, vol. 
1. p. 122 (against KorrscHav), 


912 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


aliud aliquid”! These words contain an allusion to 
Montanism,” and are similar in tone to those of the ““ Mura- 
torianum ”’ on the same subject. 

The Scriptures, on condition they are explained, not in 
the materiality of their literal sense, but in their spiritual 
sense, are not composed of human words, written as they 
have been for Jesus Christ through the inspiration of the 
Holy Ghost and at the command of the Father: they have 
been given and entrusted to us in order to confirm those who 
observe ‘‘the standard of the heavenly Church of Jesus 
Christ according to the succession of the Apostles ὃ 

The elements of faith are comprised in the baptismal 
symbol.* The words of Deuteronomy Acgyptius tertia gen- 
eratione intrabit in ecclesiam Dei (Deut. xxi. 8) must be 
understood of the Christian who believes in the Trinity: 
“Credo propter fidem Patris et Filta et Spiritus sanctz, 
in quam credit omnis qui sociatur Ecclesiae Dei, tertiam 
generationem mystice dictam”.’ The cords that uphold the 
veil of the tabernacle represent the same baptismal faith: 
“Funis enim triplex non rumpitur, quae est Trinitates 
fides, ex qua dependet et per quam sustinetur omnis Ec- 
clesia’”’.6 On several occasions Origen speaks so precisely 
of the baptismal symbol, that we can recognize its structure 
and reconstitute the tenor of the symbol to which he .is 


1° In Mat. Comment.” ser. 47 (xm. 1668). Cf. ibid. 28 (1637): 
‘“‘Nemo uti debet ad confirmationem dogmatum libris qui sunt extra 
canonizatas scripturas”. Ibid. 46 (1667): ‘‘Canonicas scripturas in 
quibus omnis christianus consentit et credit’. 

2 See how severely Origen judges Montanism, “In Mat. Comment.” 
ser. 28 (1637), and ‘‘ In Epist. ad Philem.” fragm. (x1v. 1306). 

3“ Periarchon,” Iv. 9 (360): τοῦ κανόνος τῆς Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ κατὰ 
διαδοχὴν τῶν ἀποστόλων οὐρανίου ἐκκλησίας. The adjective οὐράνιος must 
be understood here in the sense of divine, and not as the antithesis of 
earthly, ἐπίγειος. 

4As to the existence of a baptismal symbol at Alexandria, see the 
testimony of Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusss. ““Η. E.” vir. 8; where 
the Bishop upbraids Novatian for denying the profession of faith that 
is made before Baptism. Τὸ λουτρὸν τὸ ἅγιον καὶ THY Te πρὸ ἀυτοῦ πίστιν 
καὶ ὁμολογίαν. The symbol of Origen is given in Hann, ‘‘Symbole,” 
pp- 11-13. 

. > Tn Levit. Homil.” v. 3 (xm. 452). 

6 ** In Exod. Homil.” rx. 3 (x11. 365), 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 313 


alluding. At the same time he shows how the articles 
which compose it suffice to condemn the heretics of his time, ! 

God has provided his Church with a living magisterium, 
which not only teaches the ecclesiastical canon of faith, but 
also strives to fathom it and to go beyond it. ‘‘ Let us ob- 
serve,” says Origen, ‘‘ that the holy Apostles delivered them- 
selves with the utmost clearness on those articles which they 
believed to be necessary to every one, even when preaching 
the faith of Christ to those who seemed somewhat dull in 
understanding the things of God; leaving, however, the 
deep-laid causes to be explored by those who had received 
from the Holy Spirit the excellent gifts of speech, of wisdom, 
and of knowledge: while on other subjects they merely stated 
the fact that things were so, keeping silence as to the cause 
and manner or origin of their being; in order that the more 
zealous lovers of study and wisdom, might in times to come 
have a subject on which to exercise their talents, with profit.” 2 
Origen thus lays down the principle of the distinction of the 
two domains—that of revelation, and that of theology under- 
stood in the scholastic sense. He distinguishes with no less 
precision the domain of rational philosophy, the investiga- 
tion of which logically precedes the Christian’s study of the 
Scriptures,’ and the domain of mystery which in its sub- 
limer regions exceeds the capacity of every created intelli- 
gence.* 

These distinctions made, Origen does not suffer opponents 
like Celsus to charge Christianity with being the religion of 
the ignorant. And were it so, he adds, “"1 shall answer that 
I endeavour to improve [and enlighten the ignorant] to the 
best of my ability, although I do not admit that the Chris- 
tian community consists only of them. For I seek in 
preference those who are clever and acute, who are able 
to comprehend the meaning of the hard sayings, and to see 
clearly into the obscurities of the Law, and Prophecies, and 
Gospels.’ 


1 ἐς Comment. in Ioan.” xxx. 9 (xtv. 784). 

5. ἐς Periarchon,” 1. 3 (x1. 116). 

8 Tbid. τ. 3, 1 (147). 4 Tbid. τι. 6, 2 (211). 

5. “9 Contra Cels.” mr. 74 (x1. 1016). Cf, m1. 52-3 (989) and vr. 1 
(1289). 


914 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Contrary to what Celsus affirms, there is nothing hidden 
or secret in the ecclesiastical teaching: from the very begin- 
ning we teach those who come to us to despise idols, and we 
lead them on to worship God, the only Creator; then, by 
means of the prophecies, we show them that He who had 
been foretold actually came, according to the testimony of 
the Gospels and of the Apostolic writings.1_ The people are 
initiated into the baptismal rudiments, but such knowledge 
is not imparted to those who do not belong to the Church. 
At the summit of the ladder, there are the truths reserved to 
God: these are above our senses, and surpass our understand- 
ing; we had better say nothing of them rather than express 
them inaccurately. Between these two degrees, ‘‘ sunt et 
alia Ecclesiae dogmata ad quae possunt pervenire etiam 
levitae, sed inferiora sunt ab his quae sacerdotibus adire 
concessum est”’.” Strictly speaking, this distinction is forced ; 
yet it agrees well with Origen’s idea of doctrine and its 
distribution. A part of the doctrine is for the simple and 
the multitude; another part is for the enlightened, the per- 
fect, the saints, the disciples to whom Jesus disclosed the 
meaning of His parables.* 


* * 
* 


The disciples come to the Divine Master and ask Him 
explanations ; we must do likewise: if we have a question 
to propose, let us go to one of those teachers God has estab- 
lished in the Church.*! 

The office of doctors in the Church—an office which is 
‘““the ministry ” of the ecclesiastical word—is that on which 
Origen most insists. The doctor must not only aim at cor- 
recting the morals of the Christian people, he must also deal 
out, as it were, the science of Christianity, pour out the con- 
solation of the Scriptures, explain the mysteries, and attain 


1 ἐς Contra Cels.” m1. 15 (940). 

2 Tn Levit. Homil.” v. 3 (xr. 452). 

3 Ibid. v. 6 (441). Bree, pp. 141 and foll., shows how much is exclus- 
ively Alexandrian and hardly Christian in this theory of a knowledge more 
sublime, and drawn from the use of allegory, side by side with the know- 
ledge possessed by ordinary believers. 

** Comment. in Matt.” xm. 45 (Χπι. 1132): τινι τῶν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ 
τεταγμένων ἐν TH ἐκκλησίᾳ διδασκάλων. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 315 


to a more penetrating knowledge.!. The function of teaching 
the catechumens belongs to the doctor ecclesiae.”. The bishop 
in his Church is preeminently this doctor ecclesiae, but the 
priests also share in his office: Origen, for instance, presents 
himself as a doctor ecclesiae.2 We should note the precise 
meaning of the expression and also the special stress Origen 
lays on it: the doctor ecclesiw is not he who teaches in the 
Church, but he who teaches the Church.‘ 

Holy Scripture can be compared to the loaves which Jesus 
multiplied when breaking them. Doctors, like Origen, break 
a few loaves only, and multitudes are satiated: but these 
loaves must be broken, i.e. the letter of Holy Scripture must 
be discussed minutely. Let every one follow the doctors’ 
example :— 

‘““Tenta ergo et tu, o auditor, habere proprium puteum 
et proprium fontem, ut et tu, cum apprehenderis librum 
Scripturarum, incipias etiam ex proprio sensu proferre ali- 
quem intellectum, et, secundum ea quae in ecclesia didicisti, 
tenta et tu bibere de fonte ingenii tui. st intra te natura 
aquae vivae, sunt venae perennes, et irrigua fluenta rationa- 
bilis sensus, si modo non sint terra et ruderibus oppleta.” ° 

No one, before Origen, had urged his fellow-Christians, 
with such noble earnestness, to the acquisition of culture, 
to intellectual effort, to the spread of knowledge within the 
Church; but he always subordinated this expansion of in- 
tellectual inquiry to the control of the praedicatio ecclest- 
astica. The Passover was not eaten by those who did not 
belong to Israel: unless they were circumcised, the slaves 
whom a Jew had bought, or who were born in his house, 
could not share in the family Passover. These prescriptions 
are to be understood allegorically of our different kinds of 


‘Tn Exod. Homil.” xmr. 4 (xu. 392). ‘‘Comment. in Rom.” m1. 
2 (xiv. 929). 
*“Comment. in Rom.” τι. 11 (xiv. 897): ‘*. . . eo usque pervenit 


ut etiam dux et doctor ecclesiae sit ad illuminandos eos qui in scientia 
caeci sunt et instruendos parvulos in Christo”. This refers to the bishop. 
* “Tn Ezech. Homil.” 1, 2 (x1. 682): ‘*‘ Nec quia adversum me aliqua 
dicuntur, qui videor doctor esse ecclesiae, debeo tacere.” 
“Comment. in Rom.” rx, 2 (x1v. 1209): ‘‘in verbo Dei ecclesiam 
docentibus adesse gratiam. ...” Ibid. x. 7 (1262): ‘‘ecclesias docere”’. 
δ “Tn Gen. Homil.” xr. 5 (x11. 229). 


916 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


knowledge: one kind is born, so to speak, in our house, and 
is the fruit of our own minds; the other has been acquired 
and has come from the outside: both must be circumcised, 
for no stranger has a right to the Passover; and by a 
stranger must be understood any one who professes a 
strange dogma.! 

No one has spoken of Greek culture in more glowing 
terms than Origen; but how he contrasts it with the truth 
concealed in the God-inspired Scriptures! The ingot of 
gold which the Hebrew Achan seizes for himself, against 
Josue’s command, in the sack of Jericho, is an appropriate 
symbol of the artful resources of philosophers and orators, 
and of the “ perversa dogmata’’ to which they can so suc- 
cessfully impart a seductive appearance. If you steal away 
this ingot of gold and hide it under your tent, “si intro- 
duxeris in cor tuwm ea quae ab eis asseruntur, pollues 
omnem Eeclesiam Domini. Hoc fecit infelia Valentinus, 
et Basilides, hoc fecit et Marcion haereticus: furati sunt 
istt linguas aureas de Lericho, et philosophorum nobis non 
rectas vn ecclesias introducere conati swnt sectas, et polluere 
omnem Ecclesiam Domini.” * 

Since the Church possesses the true faith, one word 
suffices to give heretics their right name: they are the 
ἑτερόδοξοι, those who think differently from the Church. 
Origen has a predilection for this expressive term, which, in 
his vocabulary, is opposed to ἐκκλησιαστικός ὃ 

Every day the heretics are busy in attacking the ecclesi- 
astical faith, “anquirentes quomodo dogmata veritatis in- 
Jringant ;” they devote to this task all the keenness of their 
minds and all their learning, “‘perspicaces et argumentosi 
sunt in falsa scventia’’. Such is Marcion, such Basilides, 


1 ἐς Selecta in Exod.” (x1. 285). 

2“ Tn Tes. Nave Homil.” vir. 7 (x11. 863). A similar reflection is found 
in St. Hippolytus, ‘‘ Philosophoumena,” preface of Book I. 

5 Τὴ Lue. Homil.” xvr. (x1m. 1841): ‘‘ Ego vero quia opto esse ec- 
clesiasticus, et non ab haeresiarcha aliquo sed a Christi vocabulo nuncupari 
[christianus]”. Cf. “Τὰ Matt. Comment.” ser. 33 (xm. 1643): ‘‘ Utinam 
soli qui extra Ecclesiam sunt seducerentur. . . . Nunc autem ipsi qui 
profitentur se ecclesiasticos esse de necessariis quibusque capitulis falluntur 
et seducuntur.” Cf. “‘ Contra Cels.” v1. 37 (x1. 1353): οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 317 


such Valentinus, ‘‘ vel cetert auctores pravorum dogmatum ”’} 
Except Marcion, none of them founded any Church; they left 
only schools after them, ‘“ schola Valentina et Basilidis” 
Whereas the Church is the house of God, built up by the 
“‘ ecclesiastici qui in Ecclesia sunt magistri,’ the schools 
of heretics are simply abodes of evil: “‘ Haeretica aedificant 
lupanar in omni via, ut puta magister de officina Valentini, 
magister de coetu Basilidis, magister de tabernaculo Mar- 
cionis”’.® Very noticeable is the sarcastic force of these 
last words, which remind us of Tertulhan’s utterances. 

Whenever, says Origen, the heretics propose a discus- 
sion concerning the canonical Scriptures, those which are 
unanimously received by every Christian, we may exam- 
ine their varied assertions: ‘‘ Sed nos wllis credere non de- 
bemus, nec exire a prima et ecclesiastica traditione, nec alrter 
credere nisi quemadmodum per successionem Ecclesiae Der 
tradiderunt nobis”’.* Such is the tradition, which dates 
from the very beginning, and which the Churches have 
preserved, authenticating it by the succession of their re- 
spective bishops. Moreover, this tradition is the same 
everywhere: ‘ Veritas enim similis est fulguri egredients ab 
Oriente, et apparenti usque ad Occidentem, qualis est veritas 
Ecclesiae Dei: ab ea enim sola sonus in omnem terram 
exit.’ To what heresy can this criterion apply ? To the 
teaching of Marcion, to the “‘ traditiones Valentini,” to the 
longa fabulositas of Basilides, or to Apelles who contradicts 
St Paul 96 


1“ Comment. in Rom.” vu. 8 (xtv. 1181). ‘‘ In Levit. Homil.” rv. 
5 (xi. 438). 

2 bid. vir. 11 (xv. 1191). Cf. *‘ Periarchon,” 11. 5 (x1. 220). 

5. “Τῇ Ezech. Homil.” vir. 2 (xi. 730). The Latin translation is 
by St. Jerome. In other passages Origen expresses himself just as 
vigorously on the same subject. ‘‘ Periarchon,” u. 9, 6 (x1. 290) ; did. 
10, 2 (ibid. 234). 

4“ Tn Matt. Comment.” ser. 46 (x11. 1667). 5 Tbid. 

6 Ibid. Cf. ‘‘ In Levit. Homil.” vi. 4 (xr. 484): “. . . christianis 
quibus apostolicorum dictorum chara esse debet auctoritas. Si quis vero 
arrogantia tumidus apostolica dicta contemnit aut spernit, ipse viderit. 
Mihi autem, sicut Deo et Domino nostro Iesu Christo, ita et apostolis eius 
adhaerere bonum est, et ex divinis scripturis secundum ipsorum traditionem 
intellegentiam capere’’. See the most complete description of the heresies 
denounced by Origen, of ‘‘ In Epistul. ad Tit.” (x1v. 1903). 


918 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Hence the teaching of heretics can be compared most 
appropriately to counterfeit money :— 

‘‘ Hgo puto quod Valentini sermo humana pecunia est et 
reproba, et Marcionis et Basilidis pecunia humana est et 
reproba, et omnium haereticorum sermo non est probata 
pecunia, nec dominicam integre in se habet figuram, sed 
adulteram, quae, ut ita dicam, extra monetam ita figurata 
est quia extra Kcclesiam composita est.” 1 

A general prescription does not suffice ; the ecclesiastical 
teacher must face error, as it is in itself, take its own ground, 
use against it its own arguments and refute it by its own 
methods. ‘‘ Under the pretence of higher wisdom, the 
heterodox assail the holy Church of God? and multiply 
works in which they offer explanations of the Evangelical 
and Apostolic precepts ; if we keep silence and do not oppose 
to them the saving and true doctrines, these teachers will 
get hold of souls, who hunger after the food which preserves, 
but go after food that is forbidden, and is, in fact, unclean 
and abominable. It appears to me, therefore, to be neces- 
sary that one who is able to defend, without altering it in 
any way, the doctrine of the Church, and to refute those 
dealers in knowledge falsely so-called (ψευδώνυμον γνῶσιν) 
should take his stand against heretics and their lies, and 
oppose to them the sublimity of the Evangelical message 
(τὸ ὕψος τοῦ εὐωγγελικοῦ κηρύγματος), the harmonious 


1°Tn Psalm.” xxxvi; ‘‘ Homil.” m. 11 (xm. 1347). Origen uses 
another comparison, ‘‘Comment. in Rom.” x. 5 (xiv. 1256): ‘‘ Sicut 
piratae solent in mari in locis vadosis occultisque scopulis, per obscurum 
noctis lumen accendere, quo navigantes sub spe confugiendi ad portum 
salutis, ad naufragia perditionis invitent : ita et istud lumen falsae sapi- 
entiae vel falsae fidei [haereticorum] a principibus mundi et spiritibus aeris 
huius accenditur, non per quod evadant, sed per quod pereant homines 
mundi huius fluctus et vitae pelagus navigantes”. The translation of 
this passage is by Rufinus. Elsewhere Origen compares heresies to the 
gates of hell that shall not prevail against the Church : ἕκαστος τῶν érepo- 
δόξων καὶ Ue a ψευδώνυμόν τινα yrauw, φκοδόμησεν ἅδου πύλην, 
ἄλλην μὲν Μαρκίων, καὶ Βασιλίδης ἄλλην, καὶ Οὐαλεντῖνος ἄλλη: ““Com- 
ment. in Matt.” xir. 12 (xim. 1008). 

* “Comment. in Ioan.” τι. (kIV. 196) : viv δὲ προφάσει γνώσεως ἐπανι- 
σταμένων τῶν ἑτεροδόξων τῇ ayia τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκλησίᾳ k.t.A. Note in passing 
the expression, ‘‘ the holy Church ”’. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 919 


plentitude of the doctrines, common to the Old and New 
Testament.” ! 

Will the magisterium of the doctores ecclesiae suffice 
to guard the Church against the onsets of heresy? Is 
truth always so evident, that it forces conviction, and that 
every controversy comes to an end? Here Origen’s optim- 
ism and his ingenuous confidence in his methods betrays 
itself. 

‘‘Qui scripturam legit et aliter quam scripta est accipit, 
Scripturam mendaciter videt. Qui vero audit Scripturam 
ut se veritatis intellectus habet et sic eam interpretatur, 
videt veritatem.”’? 

These two axioms are very candid. How much more 
cautious is the distrust felt by Irenzeus and Tertullian ! 
And Origen himself adds immediately :— 

‘“‘ Audi haereticos, quomodo traditiones apostolorum ha- 
bere se dicant. Audi falsos magistros, quomodo affirmant 
doctrinam suam Domini esse doctrinam, sensum suum con- 
eruere sensui prophetarum, et dicunt: Haec dicit Dominus.” ὃ 

What does this mean, except that those whom Origen 
treats here as heretics and false teachers appeal in vindication 
of their teaching to the criterion of Irenzeus—to the agree- 
ment of their teaching with the Apostolic tradition, the 
authority of the Prophets, the Lord and the Apostles? <A 
doctor ecclesiae may be found to show these false teachers 
that they are in error: but who will prove that he himself 
is not mistaken ? 

‘‘ Orate pro nobis ut sermones nostri non sint falsi. Licet 
quidam homines ignorantia iudicii eos asserant falsos, Dom- 
inus non dicat, et recte nobiscum agetur. Si vero, mille 
hominum eos dixerint veros, iudicio porro Dei fuerint falsi, 
quid mihi proderit? Dicunt et Marcionitae magistri sui 
veros esse sermones; dicunt et Valentini robustissimam 


1 «4 Comment. in Ioan.” 1.0. Compare ‘‘ Periarchon,” τι. 3 (x1. 201): 
*“Sed quoniam solent interdum huius haeresis assertores per deceptiosa 
quaedam sophismata simpliciorum quorumque corda decipere, absurdum 
non puto si etiam ea quae in assertionibus suis proferre solent, propo- 
nentes subreptionem eorum ac mendacia, confutemus ”’. 

2“Tn Ezech. Homil.” 1. 5 (xii. 686). 

5 Ibid. Cf. “ Homil.” vir. 4 (ibid. 730). 


920 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


sectam! qui fabularum eius commenta suscipiunt. Quae 
utilitas, quia plurimi Ecclesiae haeretica pravitate decepti in 
eorum conspiravere sententiam? Hoc est quod quaeritur, 
ut Dominus sermonum meorum testis assistat, ut ipse com- 
probet quae dicuntur sanctarum testimonio Scripturarum.” ” 

Origen appeals to an authoritative judgment of God, 
which he identifies with the testimony of Scripture: always 
the same circle. Yet Origen knows well, that when doubt 
is so wide-spread, the decisive pronouncement in the last 
resort belongs to authority—in this case to the authority 
of bishops. This he does not say with all desirable explicit- 
ness; but he does say it, nevertheless: witness, for in- 
stance, his comment on the Biblical passage that refers to 
the censers of Core, Dathan and Abiron—censers which Moses 
had beaten into plates and fastened to the altar of holocausts, 
after the death of the three rebels. See how he expresses 
himself :— 

“51 apud homines hodie iudicaretur haec causa, et apud 
ecclesiarum principes haberetur examen de iis, verbi causa, 
qui diversa ab ecclesiis docentes divinae vindictae pertulerint 
ultionem, nonne iudicarent ut si quid locuti sunt, si quid 
docuerunt, si quid etiam scriptum reliquerunt, universa pariter 
cum ipsorum cineribus deperirent? Sed non sunt iudicia 
Dei sicut iudicia nostra.’ ὃ 

Take the case of a Christian who teaches heterodox 
doctrines both by preaching and by writing: he is con- 
demned, and by whom? By God Himself, for here Origen 
speaks expressly of the “divinae vindictae ultio” of the 
“qudicia Dei,” just as he had spoken before of the same 
“qudicium Dev”. This divine judgment precedes the exam- 
ination made by the leaders of the Churches, and directs 
their decision; it has motived it: they determine and apply 
the divine teaching of the Scriptures. The brass-censers 
of Core, Dathan, and Abiron typify Holy Scripture; this 
is why Moses fastens them to the altar of holocausts, as 
God’s property. But to the heretics belongs the fire burn- 
ing in the censers, 1.e. the interpretations that disagree with 


1The text of this Latin translation—the work of St. Jerome—is too 
elliptical not to be faulty. ; 
2 In Ezech. Homil.” τι. 5. 3 (Τὴ Num. Homil.” rx. 1 (xm. 624). 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 321 


the thoughts of God and are against the truth—an incense 
which the Lord rejects. 

«ἘΠ᾽ ideo forma ecclesiarum sacerdotibus datur, ut, 51 
quando tale aliquid fuerit exortum, ea quidem quae a veritate 
aliena sunt ab Kcclesia Dei penitus abstrudantur.”’ ! 

To the bishops then it belongs to guard Scripture against 
the erroneous meanings which the heretics, such as Marcion, 
Basilides, and their fellows, strive to put upon it: to elimin- 
ate error is in itself progress made towards truth. 

(51 doctrina ecclesiastica simplex esset, et nullis intrinse- 
cus haereticorum dogmatum assertionibus cingeretur, non 
poterat tam clara et tam examinata videri fides nostra. Sed 
idcirco doctrinam catholicam contradicentium obsidet oppug- 
natio, ut fides nostra non otio torpescat, sed exercitiis 
elimetur.”’ ? 

The theory of the development of dogma, as understood 
by Bossuet, is outlined in these few profound and accurate 
words. Yet we must not forget Origen’s purpose: he wishes 
here to show that the supervision of this dogmatic work is a 
part of the office of the bishops, which is typified by the 
pontificate of Moses. The Churches are ruled by the bishops 
in what pertains to conduct and discipline;* by them also 
are they governed in what pertains to doctrine.‘ 


1“Tn Num. Homil.” rx. 1 (am. 624), ‘‘ forma” has here the sense of 
norm. 

2 Ibid. This Latin translation is due to Rufinus. I should like to be 
sure that the word catholicam comes from Origen, who uses generally the 
word ecclesiasticam. At all events, the thought expressed here by Origen 
was familiar to the school of Alexandria. Cf. CLemrnt, “ Stromat.” 1. 
2 (vu. 709 B.). 

*There is a strict analogy between the practical and the intel- 
lectual order, between conduct and belief, as was observed by Origen 
himself. “In Matt. Comment.” ser. 35 (χππι. 1644): “ Malum est inven- 
ire aliquem secundum mores vitae errantem, multo autem peius arbitror 
esse in dogmatibus aberrare et non secundum verissimam regulam Scrip- 
turarum sentire. Quoniam si in peccatis mortalibus puniendi sumus, am- 
plius propter dogmata falsa peccantes.” Cf. “In Psalm xxxvii. Homil.” 
1. 1 (xu. 371): “ Necesse est eum qui peccat argui. . . . Nos qui episcopi 
arguentis iracundiam ferre non possumus. . . .” 

4Cf. “Τὰ Num. Homil.” χτι. 2 (xr. 660). Speaking of the Apostles, 
whom he calls kings, Origen writes: “ Si reges a regendo dicuntur, omnes 
utique qui ecclesias Dei regunt reges merito appellabuntur, multo autem 


922 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


This divine right of bishops is daily exercised: witness 
the case of Origen himself, and that of his contemporary 
Beryllus, Bishop of Bostra.!_ Councils of bishops are, in the 
time of Origen, a definitely and firmly established institution 
both in Egypt and in the East. ‘Tertullian had already 
mentioned the ‘‘ concilia ex wniversis ecclesiis’’ which were 
wont to be held ‘‘ per Graecias,” i.e. in the Greek-speaking 


countries.2 


ΒΕ * 
* 


In the course of the preceding pages, it will have been 
noticed that Origen constantly and, with a certain insistence 
uses the expression “‘the Churches”. We in our turn 
must insist on this peculiar expression. 

Origen looks upon Christendom chiefly as a number of 
scattered Churches. In order to conquer the wickedness of 
the evil spirits, God planned that, all over the inhabited 
world, Churches should be founded, which should contrast, 
by the pure lives of their members, with what Origen calls 
the. ‘‘churches of superstition, intemperance and wicked- 
ness’’. ‘The Churches of God, taught by Christ, when com- 
pared with the neighbouring churches of pagans, shine truly 
like stars in the world.* The interesting feature of this text 
is that the term “Church” is applied by Origen to pagan 
cities. No doubt Origen remembered that the word ἐκκλησία 
has in Greek an exclusively political meaning and designates 
the deliberative assembly of the citizens of a city, like 


rectius illi qui et illos ipsds dictis atque scriptis suis regunt a quibus re- 
guntur ecclesiae.” 

' HEFELE, ‘‘ Hist. des Conciles” (Farnborough edit.), vol. 1. pp. 
156-64. 

2TERTULL. ‘‘ De Ieiun.” 13. Cf. Frrmimian, inter Cyprian, ‘‘ Epis- 
tul.” txxv. 4: ‘‘Qua ex causa necessario apud nos fit ut per singulos 
annos seniores et praepositi in unum conveniamus ad disponenda ea quae 
curae nostrae commissa sunt, ut si qua graviora sunt communi consilio 
dirigantur.” Harnack, ‘‘ Geschichte des altchrist litt.,” in ‘‘ Ueberlief- 
erung,” pp. 797-800. 

3“ Contra Cels.” mm. 29 (x1. 957): . . . ἐποίησε πανταχοῦ τῆς οἰκου- 
μένης. .. γενέσθαι πανταχοῦ ἐκκλησίας ἀντιπολιτευομένας ἐκκλησίαις δει- 
σιδαιμόνων καὶ ἀκολάστων καὶ ἀδίκων. Τοιαῦτα γὰρ τὰ πανταχοῦ πολιτευόμενα 
ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν πόλεων πλήθη... Αἱ δὲ τοῦ θεοῦ Χριστῷ μαθητευθεῖσαι 
ἐκκλησίαι, συνεξεταζόμεναι ταῖς ὧν παροικοῦσι δήμων ἐκκλησίαις, ὡς φωστῆρές 
εἶσιν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 323 


Ephesus, for instance; but, did he not also conceive of a 
Christian Church as formed after the type of a city? 

The Church of God, which is at Athens, he says, is meek 
and stable, whereas the ἐκκλησία of the Athenians is turbu- 
lent, and is not at all to be compared with the Church of God 
in that city. We may say the same thing of the Church of 
God at Corinth and of the assembly of the Corinthian people 
or demos ; and also of the Church of God at Alexandria and 
of the assembly of the Alexandrian demos. Let us admire 
Him, he continues, who not only conceived the design, but 
also was able to secure in all places the establishment of 
Churches of God side by side with the Churches of the 
people in each city. 

In like manner also, if you compare the council or βουλή 
of the Church of God with the βουλή in any city, you will 
find among the councillors of the Church some who are 
worthy to administer the city of God,’ whilst nowhere do the 
councillors of cities justify by their virtues the authority they 
enjoy over their fellow-citizens. Compare for yourself the 
archon of each Church with the archon of the city, and you 
will notice that our archons in the Church of God, imperfect 
as they may be at times, are far superior in their moral 
worth.’ In all this, Origen develops the analogy between 
the Church and the city: the presbyteriwm becomes a 
council; the bishop, an archon; the local Church, a “ city 
of God,” a ‘‘nation according to God”’.4 

The whole world is thus filled with Churches.° 


1 ἐς Contra Cels.” m1. 30 (957). 

5 Ibid. : τίνες τῆς ἐκκλησίας βουλευταὶ ἄξιοί εἰσιν, εἴτις ἐστὶν ἐν τῷ παντὶ 
πόλις τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐν ἐκείνῃ πολιτεύεσθαι.---Νοῦθ in passing the expression 
“city of God”. It is an expression which is found already in the 
“Shepherd” of Hermas (‘‘Sim.” 1), but there it designates Heaven in 
contrast with the earth. 

* Ibid. (960) : ἄρχοντα ἐκκλησίας ἑκάστης πόλεως ἄρχοντι τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει 
συγκριτέον κ.τ.λ. 

‘Ibid. vii. 75 (χι. 1629): ἡμεῖς ἐν ἑκάστῃ ἄλλο σύστημα πατρίδος 
κτισθὲν λόγῳ θεοῦ ἐπιστάμενοι. . . . Further on: εἰ καλῶς ἄρχουσιν οἱ 
ἄρχοντες ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ, τῆς κατὰ θεὸν πατρίδος, λέγω δὲ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, 
λεγόμενοι προστάται κ.τ.λ. 

*“ Selecta in Psalm.” χχχτι. 8 (x1. 1806) : πᾶσα ἡ γῆ Χριστοῦ ἐκκλη- 
σίαις πεπλήρωτο. “In Cantic. Lib.” m. (xi. 110) : ‘‘ Ecclesiae innumerae 
sunt quae per orbem terrae diffusae sunt”. ‘In Ezech. Homil.” rv. 1 


ous 


924 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


The Churches spread through the whole world form 
a mystic unity: they are, in Origen’s crude words, “the 
entire body of the synagogues of the Church;’’! likewise 
he speaks of those who ‘inhabit the ecumenicity of the 
Church of God”’.? He also says more felicitously that “‘ the 
Church is the cosmos of the cosmos”. Taking up a thought 
dear to St. Paul, Origen speaks of the Church as the body of 
Christ: ‘‘The holy Scriptures declare the whole Church of 
God to be the body of Christ, animated by the Son of God’’.4 

Thus understood, the Church is like a house—a house 
to which we may apply allegorically the command of Moses 
regarding the Pasch: “‘/n una domo comedetur”’. In this 
respect, Origen contrasts the Church with the Synagogue.° 
One must not seek to eat the word of God both in the 
Church and in the synagogue of the Jews, nor may one par- 
take of it both in the Church and in the synagogue of the 
heretics. ‘Realize, then, that the Church is the only 
house: never eat the Paschal lamb outside the Church.” 
The precept of Moses in its allegorical meaning is for you: 


(tv. 698): ‘‘Quando terra Britanniae ante adventum Christi in unius 
Dei consensit religionem? Quando terra Maurorum? Quando totus 
semel orbis? Nunc vero propter ecclesias quae mundi limites tenent, 
universa terra cum laetitia clamat ad Dominum.”—On the diffusion of 
Christianity all over the world, Origen is less positive in another text. 
“In Matt. Comment.” ser. 39 (xm. 1655). In this passage, he states 
that as yet the Gospel has not been brought to the Ethiopians, or to 
India, Britain, Germany, or among the Dacians, the Sarmatians and the 
Scythians. 

1¢¢Comment. in Matt.” xi. 24 (x1. 1157). 

2 ἐς Selecta in Psalm.” xxxu. 8 (xu. 1805). The adjective ‘‘ catholic,” 
applied to the Church, is found, as far as I know, chiefly in the Latin 
translations of Origen, and there it does not seem to have been necessarily 
taken from the original. Origen uses the word καθολικός to designate 
what is general or universal; a universal proposition is catholic ; God’s 
benefits also are catholic, i.e. universal. 

3 ἐς Comment. in Ioan.” vi. 38 (xtv. 301). 

4 Contra Cels.” vr. 48 (x1. 1378): σῶμα Χριστοῦ φασιν εἶναι οἱ θεῖοι 
λόγοι, ὑπὸ τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ ψυχούμενον, THY πᾶσαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκλησίαν. Cf. 
ibid. 79 (1417). 

“In Genes. Homil.” xi. 3 (xi. 226). “In Exod. Homil.” τι. 4 
(ibid. 309). “In Cantic. Homil.” τι. 3 (x1. 49). ‘In Ierem. Homil.” rx. 
3 (ibid. 352). 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 395 


ἐς Non efferetis e domo de carnibus foras’’. The ecclesiastical 
word must not be carried outside the Church: “1 mean it 
must not be carried into the synagogue of the Jews or of 
the heretics ’’.1 

Elsewhere Origen compares the Church to the ark of 
Noe: as there was but one ark, this allegory must be under- 
stood of the universal Church.? When He foretold that He 
would rebuild the temple in three days, the Saviour had in 
mind His real and historical body; but He thought also of 
His mystical body which is the Church and which he will 
raise up on the last day with all the Saints who compose it.’ 
There is one Church upon earth, and there is one Church in 
Heaven.* The Church upon earth rules the world.® 

The Church is the spouse spoken of in the Canticle: 
‘““Ego Ecclesia, ego sponsa, ego sine macula, pluremarum 
custos swum posita vinearum,’ ὃ and the bridegroom replies to 
her: ‘‘ Tanto melior es omnibus filiabus, tu sponsa, tu 
ecclesiastica anima, omnibus animabus quae non sunt ec- 
clestasticae”’." Strengthened by the grace of Him who was 
crucified for her, the Church is a virgin and virgins are her 
glory: ‘‘ Heclesia Christi .. . virgo sponsa Christi castis et 
pudicis virgynibus floret”.® She is also a mother, the 
mother of all the children whom she brings forth to Christ: 
“Utinam essetis gaudium matris Ecclesiae’’.» This per- 
sonification of the Church upon earth, is an expression of 
her unity. 

Can the unity of the universal Church be inferred from 


1“Tn Genes. Homil. cit.” Cf. “Select. in Psalm.” cxvu. 85 
(1602). 

2 “Τὴ Genes. Homil.” τι. 3-6 (167 and foll.). 

*“ Comment. in Ioan.” x. 20 (xiv. 372). 

“Tn Num. Homil.” mr. 3 (x. 596). 

5 “Selecta in Psalm.” xxrx. (xm. 1296). The Church is the Lord’s 
mountain. Τούτῳ τῳ ὄρει κράτος ἀπὸ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐν τῇ εὐδοκίᾳ αὐτοῦ ἐστι 
βεβαίως δοθὲν, κρατεῖ δὲ ἡ ἐκκλησία βασιλεύουσα τῶν λοιπῶν ἐπὶ γῆς καὶ 
Χριστῷ συμβασιλεύουσα. 

8“ In Cantic. Homil.” 1. 7 (xi. 46). Of. “In. Cantic.” Lib. rv. (δια. 
187): ‘‘Possunt diversae ecclesiae quae per orbem terrae habentur vites 
dici florentes vel vineae.” 

7“Tn Cantic. Homil. cit.” 10 (46). 

8“In Genes. Homil.” τπ. 6 (xu. 181). Cf. “ Homil.” xvir. 2 (254). 

® Ibid. ** Homil.” x. 1 (215). 


326 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the promise made by the Saviour to St. Peter? Origen 
understands this promise literally: ‘“‘ Peter is the one on 
whom is built the Church of Christ, against which the gates 
of Hell shall not prevail’. And elsewhere: ‘‘ Vide magno 
ili Ecclesiae fundamento et petrae solidissimae super quam 
Christus fundavit Ecclesiam, quid dicatur a Domino: 
Modicae βαθὺ quare dubitasti?”’* Above the other Apostles 
Peter enjoys prerogatives that are given by the Saviour Him- 
self, and place between him and his colleagues a difference of 
excellence.2 We should like to see Origen giving some 
firmer indication of the dogmatic and juridical meaning of 
this primacy, something more definite regarding its perpetu- 
ity, a perpetuity which was so sensibly felt, as we shall see, 
in the events of his time. But if, unlike Ireneus, Origen 
is not an exponent of the doctrine of the primacy, must he 
be deemed an exponent of the doctrine of the equality of 
Churches? A passage in his commentary on St. Matthew 
has been thought to favour this supposition. 

If the light which the Heavenly Father has bestowed 
upon our hearts prompts us to say to Christ: ‘‘ Thou art 
Christ, the Son of the living God,” if we say so, not in- 
fluenced at all by flesh and blood, we too may become what 
Peter was, to whom Christ said: ‘‘ Blessed art thou ;’’* and 
to us also Christ may say: ‘‘ Thou art Peter, and upon this 
rock I will build my Church”. For every disciple of Christ 
is a rock, and upon every such rock is built the ecclesiastical 
teaching and the life in accordance with it; whoever has 
this teaching and this life realized in him, has the Church 
built by God also realized in him. 

Continuing his commentary, Origen answers an objec- 
tion which he foresees might be raised: ‘‘ If you suppose,” 
he says, “‘that upon this one Peter alone the whole Church 
is built by God, what will you say about John the son of 
thunder or about each one of the Apostles?” ® 


1“ Comment. in Ioan.” xv. 3 (xiv. 188). 

2“ Tn Exod. Homil.” v. 4 (x11. 329). 

3 «Comment. in Matt.” xm. 31 (x1. 1180). 

4 Ibid. xu. 10 (xin. 997). 

5 Ibid. 11 (ibid. 1000) : εἰ δὲ ἐπὶ τὸν ἕνα ἐκεῖνον Πέτρον νομίζεις ὑπὸ τοῦ 
θεοῦ οἰκοδομεῖσθαι τὴν πᾶσαν ἐκκλησίαν μόνον. ... Notice the precision 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 327 


Some have surmised that in this, and in a few other 
texts, Origen was aiming a silent, though real blow at the 
Roman Church and her policy of capturing the ecclesiastical 
primacy, which, we are told, she was slowly pursuing,! I 
do not believe that such a thought is in any way in Origen’s 
mind; he seems rather to be occupied exclusively with the 
moral application he can make of the text ‘‘ Thou art Peter”’. 
This moral application requires that the promise be in no 
way personal to the Apostle Peter; hence he forces the text 
in this direction. ‘‘Shall we dare to say,” he exclaims, 
‘“‘that against Peter alone the gates of Hades shall not 
prevail, but that they shall prevail against the other Apostles 
and the perfect?’? No indeed! But Origen notices neither 
the sophism into which he actually falls, nor the violence 
he does to the literal meaning of his text. To be Peter 
is to be one of those living stones on which the Church 
is built: ‘All bear the surname of ‘rock’ who are the imi- 
tators of Christ’’.? It is a striking example of the freedom 
with which Origen sacrifices the literal meaning of Holy 
Scripture. 

What may be said, as we have seen, of the episcopal 
authority, must be said of the Roman primacy also: it is 
found chiefly in the facts: it is a fact that Origen, who in 
his youth had visited many Churches, deems it an honour to 
have visited the Roman Church, “desiring, as he himself 
says, to see the very ancient Church of the Romans,’ 3 
which he did in the time of Pope Zephyrinus (about the year 
210). It is a fact also, that having drawn upon himself, at 
Alexandria, the anger and jealousy of Demetrius, the Bishop, 
the latter forbade him to teach and deposed him from the 
priesthood ; causing this sentence to be passed on him by 
the Bishops of Egypt, assembled at Alexandria, and then 


of Origen’s words : That Peter, who has just answered Jesus and whom 
Jesus is actually addressing. As to the prerogatives of John and of the 
other Apostles, compare the text of St. Cyprian, “‘ Hoc erant ceteri 
apostoli,” ete., to be given later on (p. 368). 

* Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 490. 

* Loe. cit. : παρώνυμοι πέτρας πάντες οἱ μιμηταὶ Χριστοῦ. 

* Quoted by Euszp. “H. E.” νι. 14, 10: εὐξάμενος τὴν ἀρχαιοτάτην 
“Ῥωμαίων ἐκκλησίαν ἰδεῖν. Of. “Contra Cels.” vi. 24 (x1. 1328), where 
Origen alludes to his foreign travels. 


398 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


publishing it to all the Bishops of Christendom :! Demetrius 
obtains the adhesion of the bishops he approached, except 
those of Palestine, Arabia, Phenicia and Achaia; but the ad- 
hesion he receives from Rome is especially mentioned. Again, 
it is a fact that, to defend his orthodoxy, Origen sends letters 
to most of the bishops, among whom Eusebius cites first 
the Bishop of Rome, Fabian?: which makes Harnack say 
that ‘“‘in Origen’s case, the voice of Rome seems to have 
been of special importance.” If we pass beyond the time 
of Origen and come to the affair of Paul of Samosata, the 
sentence of deposition pronounced against the latter by the 
council that had assembled at Antioch, is notified to the 
bishops of ‘‘ the whole Catholic Church under heaven,” and, 
as Harnack observes again, the Roman bishop Dionysius is 
mentioned first in the address.* Lastly, it is a fact, and 
one far more significant, that the Bishop of Alexandria him- 
self, Dionysius, is denounced to his namesake, Dionysius, 
Bishop of Rome, as having expressed himself faultily on the 
Trinity: a council at Rome deliberates on the matter, and 
the Bishop of Rome sends to Alexandria in his name and in 
that of the council, a letter in which, whilst mentioning no 
one in particular, he condemns the Modalistic errors and 
conjointly Subordinationism. At the same time (in a special 
letter), the Bishop of Rome invites Dionysius of Alexandria, 
to explain his meaning: which the latter does by sending to 
Rome an Apology in four books. In reference to this, 


1 Euses. “Η. E.” vi. 8, 4: τοῖς ava τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐπισκόποις καταγρά- 
pew. Cf. ibid. 23, 4. 

2 Ibid. 36, 4. 

3 ἐς Toomeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 493, according to Euszs. ‘‘ H. E.” vit. 30, 2: 
Διονυσίῳ (Rome) καὶ Magive (Alexandria) καὶ τῆς κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην πᾶσι 
συλλειτουργοῖς ἡμῶν ἐπισκόποις καὶ πρεσβυτέροις καί διακόνοις καὶ πάσῃ TH 
ὑπὸ τὸν οὐρανὸν καθολικῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. The episode belongs to the year 267 
or 268. To understand why Rome and Alexandria are mentioned in the 
address drawn up at Antioch, one must remember that Rome and Alex- 
andria were looked upon by the Greeks at the time of the Empire as the 
two metropolitan cities of the world. 

4 ArHaNnas. ‘De Sent. Dionys.” 5. In his “ Epistula ad Antioch- 
enos ” (JAFFE, 186), Pope Julius rebukes the Eusebians, for having judged 
St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, before consulting the Bishop of 
Rome as is customary : this is an allusion to the precedent of Dionysius, 
in the third century. 


ne 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 329 


Harnack observes that this procedure, the denunciation to 
Rome, the judgment of Rome, the intervention of Rome at 
Alexandria, the justification of Alexandria at Rome, gives 
rise to no objection at Alexandria, where Christians evidently 
regard the Roman Church as primarily charged with the duty 
of watching over “‘ the strict observance of the conditions of 
the general ecclesiastical confederation,’ ! or still better—as 
we might say—of watching over the preservation of the 
Catholic faith. 


* * 
* 


Origen is above all a teacher; and attaches the chief 
value to Christian doctrine, the unanimous acceptance of 
which is, in his eyes, well secured by the defeat of the 
Gnostics, by the solidity of the rule of ecclesiastical faith, by 
the security he finds in his theological method. Such a 
conception was good for the Greeks, whose fondness for 
exegesis and dialectics led them to believe that exegesis and 
dialectics suffice to secure the unity of the Church. Do we 
not find in the one-sidedness of this conception the germ, as 
it were, of the future of Greek Christendom, with its contro- 
versies, its councils, its schism that obstinately continues to 
assume the title of orthodoxy ? 

Again, Origen failed to study ecclesiology in itself. The 
Church is not in the number of the subjects of which he 
speaks ex professo in the ‘‘ Periarchon”’. There he treats of 
the divine unity, of the last things, even of tradition and of 


1HaRNAcK, loc. cit. We may note, with the same writer, that 
Rome was by no means unconcerned with the life of the Churches in this 
part of the orbis romanus. Dionysius of Alexandria speaks of the 
material help contributed many atime by the Church of Rome to the 
Churches of Syria and of Arabia. Eusss. ‘‘H. E.” vi. 5, 2. We may 
recall too that, when Paul of Samosata, after his deposition, had tried to 
maintain his ground at Antioch, the Emperor Aurelian, who is approached 
by the Antiochians—the first instance of an appeal to the imperial interven- 
tion to settle an ecclesiastical dispute—rules that the legitimate bishop is 
the one who is acknowledged by the bishops of Italy, and the bishop of 
Rome. Euvusess. “Η. E.” vi. 30,19. The fact is the more significant be- 
cause Rome had not intervened in the procedure against Paul of Samosata, 
and the sentence of deposition had been given only by the bishops of 
Asia Minor and of Syria, who had assembled at Antioch. Did Paul, 
after his condemnation, appeal to Rome, or was Aurelian’s decision sug- 
gested to him by the orthodox of Antioch ? 


990 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


the rule of faith, but not of the Church: a strange omission, 
which was to persist in Greek dogmatics—for instance, in 
the “‘ Catechetical Discourse”’ of St. Gregory ot Nyssa, and 
especially in the work of St. John Damascene—an omission 
which was to be reproduced in scholastic theology. 

But before parting with Origen, let us note in his 
writings an intuition of another order. The Church is 
one all over the world, and they only are Christians, who 
‘belong to the Church which takes its name from Christ’’.1 
Now, between Judaism and Christianity there is this far- 
reaching difference that the former had a Law which was 
suited to the Jews and to the Jews only, and which, therefore, 
could not be universal; the latter, on the contrary, has re- 
ceived a new legislation, which can adapt itself to human 
life wherever it is led.2 Even where Christians refuse to 
enter the army, what civic spirit is superior to theirs! By 
their moral worth they are the good citizens; they serve the 
prince by their prayers. Separated from pagans by their 
faith, they contribute to the public welfare by their righteous- 
ness and the asceticism they profess.2 What would happen, 
if all Romans embraced Christianity? Origen asks himself 
this question which Celsus had first asked in sarcasm. 
Origen is enchanted at the vision of peace and unanimity 
it presents: no more wars, no more enemies, since. God 
can protect His people. Does He not put an end to per- 
secutions, when it pleases Him to do so? ‘Through the 
conversion of the Romans, God would establish His king- 
dom upon earth, the Church would become the kingdom of 
God substituted for the Roman Empire and identified with 


1 Contra. Cels.” vim. 16 (x1. 1540). 

2 Ibid. iv. 22 (1060): νόμους καινοὺς καὶ ἁρμόζοντας τῇ πανταχοῦ 
καθεστώσῃ πολιτείᾳ. 

3 Ibid. vii. 79 (1628): συμπονοῦμεν τοῖς κοινοῖς πράγμασιν κιτιλ. The 
whole page is worth reading.—This idea is not new, for it was an apolo- 
getic theme touched upon by Justin (‘‘ Apol.” 1.12) and developed by 
Melito (Eusss. ““Η. E.” 1v. 26) in a remarkable page of his Apology 
addressed to Marcus Aurelius. On the contrary, Tertullian, under the 
influence of Stoicism, regarded the State as something Christians had 
better not take into account: ‘‘ Nulla magis res nobis aliena quam 
publica : unam omnium rempublicam agnoscimus, mundum.” ‘‘ Apolog.” 
98. 


ORIGEN AND GREEK ORTHODOXY 331 


mankind, she would be the “city of God’. Before falling 
from the lips of St. Augustine, these words fall from the 
lips of Origen: the idea belongs to Plato, to Philo, and to 
the Stoics, just as much as to Origen himself; but in 
expressing it as a hope, as a myth, Origen has an intuition 
in advance of his time, of the policy of Theodosius and the 
union between the Church and the Empire. 


CHAPTER VIII. 
ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME. 


CYPRIAN was martyred on 14 September, 258. He had 
been made Bishop of Carthage in the year 248 or 249. He 
was involved, during his episcopate, which lasted hardly ten 
years, In Important ecclesiastical controversies, for the his- 
tory of which we have many documents: thanks to Cyprian 
and to the disputes of his time, much light is thrown on 
ecclesiology. 

T'wo preliminary observations must be made if we 
would avoid misconceiving the part played by Cyprian in 
the history of the treatise on the Church. 

In the first place, he is both a brilliant Latin writer, 
and a bishop in the noblest sense of the term. His ‘“ genius’”’ 
is not that of an original theorist: it is easy to see that the 
ideas he develops are borrowed from the Catholic works of 
Tertullian ;1 and certainly there must be some truth in the 
legend that every day he caused the works of Tertullian to 
be brought to him, saying: “ Da magistrum”. It is true ~ 
that he does not once mention Tertullian; and this shows 
that the ideas he takes from him, from Tertullian as a Ca- 
tholic, are the received ideas in Africa in the first half of the 
third century. 

In the second place, Cyprian is not—as he has been re- 
presented at times—a man of one idea. The idea of the 
Church and of her unity does not explain all his work. 
In this respect Mohler is wrong in comparing him with St. 
Ignatius of Antioch. He is still less—in spite of what O. 
Ritschl suggests—a vacillating publicist who had no other 
doctrine than that which was imposed on him from day to 


1 This is noticed by St. J erome, “ἐ Hpistulae,” txxxiv. 2: “ Cyprianus 
Tertulliano magistro utitur, ut eius scripta probant ”. 
332 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 333 


day by his ecclesiastical policy. But it must be granted 
that having, like Bossuet fourteen centuries later, to con- 
tend with the equivocation inherent in episcopalianism, 
he died before he could entirely free himself from its 
entanglements. 

Let us try first to ascertain from St. Cyprian what were 
the leading features of the hierarchical system in his time. 


ip 


The first and most conspicuous feature that we find 
is that the Church is constituted like a city. The faithful 
form a collectivity which bears the old Roman name of 
plebs : ‘the deacon Pontius gives the name of plebevus to 
Cyprian, before his elevation to the presbyterate.'_ The term 
ordo or clerus is complementary to the term plebs.? 

The ordo in the Church is made up of the bishop, the 
priests, and the deacons. In the plebs, there is no distinc- 
tion of ranks: the Edict of Valerian, which opens the perse- 
cution of 257, commands the magistrates to prosecute the 
bishops, the priests and the deacons, and then to despoil 
of their goods those Christians who are senatores, egregv 
viri, equites romani;* these civil distinctions have not 
entered into the ecclesiastical language. 

When Cyprian writes to a Church, he addresses the 
bishop alone: Cyprianus Cornelio fratri, Cyprianus Luba- 
iano fratri. Τί the see is vacant, he writes to the clergy: 
Cyprianus presbyteris et diaconis Romae consistentibus. 
When he happens to be separated from his Church, and 


1 Pont. ‘‘ Vita Cypriani” (Harret, vol. ut. p. xe and foll.) 8. Cf. 
‘* Epistulae,” τα. 1: ‘‘ Clerus et plebs, fraternitas omnis ”. 

2 Oyprian, ““ Epistulae,” nx. 19: “᾿ς. florentissimo illic [at Rome] 
clero tecum [the Pope] praesidenti et sanctissimae atque amplissimae plebi. 
ον" The terms ordo and plebs belong to the language of Tertullian 
“‘Monog.” 11 and 12; ‘‘ Exhort castit.” 7. Compare ‘‘ Epistulae,” X., in 
which Cyprian notifies to his clergy and to his people at Carthage that 
the priest Numidicus henceforth ‘‘adscribatur presbyterorum cartha- 
giniensium numero et nobiscum sedeat in clero” and that he will “in 
consessus nostri honore florere”. Cf. ‘‘ Epistulae,” mix. 18; “.. . in 
cleri nostri sacrum venerandumque congestum ”’. 

9 ἐς Epistulae,” Lxxx, 1. 


994 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


in flight, Cyprian writes: OCyprianus presbyteris et diaconis 
et plebt wniversae. If he addresses exclusively either his 
clergy or his people: Cyprianus presbyteris et diaconis or 
Cyprianus plebt wniversae, respectively. 

Although there is an ordo in every Church, there is 
also everywhere a monarchical episcopate. Episcopacy is the 
“ Sacerdoti sublime fastigium ”’ . the bishop is, in his Church, 
the supreme sacerdos, as well as the supreme judex ; and he 
is sacerdos and judex in Christ’s place and stead.1. Go to 
the assembly of the faithful, and there only two personalities 
at first appear to you: the bishop and the people.’ 

Generally no one is elected bishop, unless he has gone 
through the different grades of the hierarchy and the different 
offices of the Church.* The election of the bishop does not 
take place without the suffrage of the faithful of the Church 
that is to be provided for, and without the votes of the 
clergy. The bishops take part in the election, on them 
it depends, and from them it receives its validity.® By 


τ ἐς Kpistulae,” tx. 5: ‘* Unus in ecclesia ad tempus sacerdos et ad 
tempus iudex vice Christi cogitatur”. Tertullian treated the bishop 
as “summus sacerdos ” (‘‘ De Bapt.” 17) ; Cyprian says “‘ wnus sacerdos”’. 
It may be that, by this shade of thought, Cyprian means to reprove the 
theory of Tertullian—when a Montanist—as to the priesthood of the 
laity. ὶ 

3 Ibid. uvin. 4 : ““ Collectam fraternitatem, tractantes episcopos ”’. 

> Ibid. uv. 8: ‘*Non iste [Cornelius] ad episcopatum subito per- 
venit, sed per omnia ecclesiastica officia promotus, et in divinis admini- 
strationibus Dominum saepe promeritus, ad sacerdotii sublime fastigium 
cunctis religionis gradibus ascendit”’. 

‘Ibid: ‘‘ Factus est Cornelius episcopus . . . de clericorum paene 
omnium testimonio, de plebis quae tunc adfuit suffragio.” The bio- 
grapher of Alexander Severus writes in the Augustan history as follows : 
“Ubi aliquos voluisset ... rectores provinciis dare . . . nomina 
eorum proponebat, hortans populum ut, si quis quid haberet criminis, 
probaret manifestis rebus ; si non probasset, subiret poenam capitis ; dice- 
batque grave esse, cum id Christiani et Iudaei facerent in praedicandis 
sacerdotibus qui ordinandi sunt, non fieri in provinciarum rectoribus, qui- 
bus et fortunae hominum committerentur et capita.” ‘“ Alexand. Sev.” 
45.—It is not at all certain that the members of the Jewish sanhedrim 
were thus elected, but the assertion is true of the sacerdotes among 
Christians—i.e. of the bishops—and, in fact, of the whole Christian ordo. 

> Ibid.: ‘Et factus est episcopus a plurimis collegis nostris qui 
tune in urbe Roma aderant.”—When defending ‘his own election before 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 335 


the bishops, we must understand the bishops of the province, 
and not all of them, but those only who can come, in most 
cases those who are nearest. Such is the Apostolic rule 
followed from time immemorial in Africa and in all—or 
to speak more correctly—in almost all the provinces.! 

When the election is over, the bishops who are present 
lay their hands upon the candidate, to ‘‘ confer upon him 
the episcopate”’.?. The bishops are the successors of the 
Apostles. The words spoken by Christ to His Apostles: 
“Qui vos audit me audit,” are true of the bishops, for they 
were said for the legitimate bishops, ‘ qui apostolis vicaria 
ordinatione succedunt”’? 


Pope Cornelius against the charges of Felicissimus, Cyprian recalls 
that his election was made “ post populi suffragium, post coepiscoporum 
consensum ”’ ; but he says also : “ post divinum iudicium”. ‘‘ Epistulae,” 
Lx. 5. Cyprian does not conceive of any one being made a bishop, without 
the divine judgment. He often recurred to this orthodox idea of the 
faith which confirms the divine right of every bishop. 

1“ pistulae,” τιχ σαι. 5: ‘‘ Diligenter de traditione divina et apostolica 
observatione servandum est et tenendum, quod apud nos quoque et fere 
per provincias universas tenetur, ut ad ordinationes rite celebrandas ad 
eam plebem cui praepositus ordinatur episcopi eiusdem provinciae proximi 
quique conveniant, et episcopus deligatur plebe praesente, quae singulorum 
vitam plenissime novit.”—The restriction fere per provincias wniversas may 
refer to the very exceptional case of Alexandria. We see at Rome Pope 
Cornelius himself assign bishops to three churches of Italy whose former 
bishops had been deposed. Eusus. “H. E.” vr. 43, 10. 

* Cf. the letter of Cornelius (Eusxs. loc. cit.) in which he relates 
how Novatian, after bringing to Rome under false pretences three 
poor Italian bishops, “rustics,’ constrained them to lay their hands 
upon him. This was done at the tenth hour (four p.m.) and the un- 
fortunate bishops were drunk: Μετὰ Bias ἠνάγκασεν εἰκονικῇ τινι καὶ 
ματαίᾳ χειρεπιθεσίᾳ ἐπισκοπὴν αὐτῷ δοῦναι. It may be inferred from this 
that, even then, three bishops had to be present for an episcopal 
consecration. Notice the expression: χειρεπιθεσίᾳ ἐπισκοπὴν δοῦναι : the 
bishops give through the imposition of hands the episcopate they possess 
themselves. Notice, too, that the three heretical bishops are represented 
by Cornelius as having performed an invalid ordination (ματαίᾳ). 

* Ibid. uxvi. 4. Cf. ‘‘ Sententiae episcoporum,” 79 (ΠΛΆΤΕΙ, τ. 459) : 
“Manifesta est sententia Domini nostri Iesu Christi apostolos suos mit- 
tentis et ipsis solis potestatem a patre sibi datam permittentis, quibus 
nos successimus eadem potestate Ecclesiam Domini gubernantes et creden- 
tium fidem baptizantes.” (Sententia of Clarus, bishop of Mascula). In 
this document the bishops of Africa affirm that they possess that divine 
potestas which was denied to them by Tertullian, when a Montanist. 


336 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


The priests are somewhat like mute personages, who 
follow the bishop and second him, but have no history of 
their own, except when they rebel, which they do at times, 
as did Novatus at Carthage and Novatian at Rome.’ The 
deacons are more prominent, and stand more apart; but 
they hold an inferior rank which demands of them subor- 
dination: St. Cyprian urges them to remember that the 
Lord Himself chose the Apostles, i.e. the bishops, whilst the 
deacons were instituted by the Apostles, to be the ministers 
of the Apostles and of the Church.’ 

The priests have for their office to offer up the Holy 
Sacrifice where the bishop himself does not celebrate.* 

When away from Carthage, Cyprian expects that his 
priests, and his deacons also, will fulfil the office which he, 
their bishop, is unable to fulfil. ‘‘ Offictwm mewm vestra 
diligentia repraesentet.”* This delegation of the episcopal 
office is confined to the celebration of the Holy Mysteries, to 
Baptism and the reconciliation of sinners in extremis, to 
preaching and almsgiving. A function which ordinarily 
devolves on the priests is that of teaching the catechumens: 
the priests who perform this duty are called presbytert doc- 
tores or doctores audientium, the audientes being the cate- 


1“ Bpistulae,” xvi. 1: “. . . quando aliqui de presbyteris, nec euangelii 
nec loci sui memores, sed neque . . . nunc sibi praepositum episcopum co- 
gitantes, quod nunquam omnino sub antecessoribus factum est, cum con- 
tumelia et contemptu praepositi, totum sibi vindicent !”—The priests are 
called by the bishop his compresbyteri :—an appellation which recalls the 
time when the episcopus was the first among the presbyters. But like- 
wise the bishop calls other bishops compresbyteri. These two archaic ex- 
pressions are worthy of notice. 

2Tbid. ur. 3: “Meminisse diaconi debent quoniam apostolos, id 
est episcopos et praepositos, Dominus elegit, diaconos autem post ascen- 
sum Domini in caelos apostoli sibi constituerunt episcopatus sui et ec- 
clesiae ministros.”—Cyprian confounds the institution of the bishops with 
that of the Apostles: a confusion which is also met with in Theodore of 
Mopsuestia, and in Theodoret. Licutroor, “ Christian Ministry,” p. 29. 

3 Ibid. xvi. 4: “Interim prohibeantur offerre”. Cf. ““ Epistulae,” 
Lx1. 3: ‘*. . . cum episcopo presbyteri sacerdotali honore coniuncti”. 
The idea of priesthood is connected with that of sacrifice (offerre). Ter- 
tullian, when a Catholic, expressed both ideas with force (ADAM, p. 96- 
102), and in this respect Cyprian is no innovator. 

4 Τρὶά. xu. 1. Of. v. 1: ‘“ Fungemini illic et vestris partibus et meis, 
ut nihil vel ad disciplinam, vel ad diligentiam desit ”. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME oon 


chumens.!. Pontius relates that Cyprian was taught the 
true religion and converted by the priest Cecilian ;? besides, 
he tells us that Cyprian himself, when he was a priest, was 
charitable towards the widows; that whoever needed lght 
found it through him; that whoever was weak found in him 
a support; and that whoever sought the help of a strong 
hand could rely upon his. The rhetoric of these expressions 
may be poor but under them we can read that the priestly 
ministrations embrace the service of widows, the service of 
the catechesis, and probably also the service of penitence, 
that is of the penitence of individual and private persons.’ 

From a letter of Pope Cornelius to the Bishop of An- 
tioch, Fabius, we learn that in the year 251 the Roman 
Church had forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven sub- 
deacons, forty-two acolytes, fifty-two exorcists, lectors or 
ostiaril, taken all together, and that it supported more than 
fifteen hundred widows and destitute persons. The people 
were innumerable, says Cornelius. We do not know how 
many ecclesiastics there were in Carthage at the time of 
Cyprian. We do know, however, that, besides the priests and 
the deacons, the Carthaginian Church has also, like the Church 
of Rome, subdeacons (hypodiaconi),> acolytes (acolyth),° 
exorcists,’ and lectors. No mention is made of ostiaril or 
porters. No one of these clerics is raised to his office without 
the approval of the clergy and of the people. 


1“ Epistulae,” xxrx. and xvi. 2. See also txxm. 3. Tertullian, 
when a Catholic, had said that the bishops, priests, and deacons alone have 
the right to teach: ‘‘ Nisi episcopi iam, aut presbyteri aut diaconi, vo- 
cantur discentes ”. ‘‘ De Bapt.” 17. 

2 ἐς Vita Cypriani,” 4. 

5" Ind. 3: “ Domus eius patuit cuicumque venienti: nulla vidua re- 
vocata sinu vacuo, nullus indigens lumine non illo comite directus est, 
nullus debilis gressu non illo baculo vectus est, nullus nudus auxilio de 
potentioris manu non illo tutore protectus est”. But we must not over- 
strain these expressions. 

4 Euses. “Ἢ. E.” vi. 43, 11-12. Renan, ‘‘ Mare Auréle,” p. 451, 
estimates that the Christians of Rome must have been from thirty to 
forty thousand in number. 

5“ Hpistulae,’ XXIx., XXXIV. 4, LXXVIII., LXXIX. etc. 

6 Tbid. vil., XXXIV. 4, XLV. 4, xix. 3, etc. 

7 Ibid. xxur. The exorcists have for their function to exorcise, 
before baptism, those who are possessed. See “ Epistulae,” Lxrx. 15. 


22 


998 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


As regards the lectorate, one should read the thirty-eighth 
letter of Cyprian, a beautiful and expressive letter, in which 
he tells the clergy and the plebs of Carthage—from whom 
he is still exiled—of his having raised to the lectorate the 
young martyr Aurelius. Cyprian begins by excusing himself 
for not having taken beforehand the advice of his clergy 
or asked the assent of his people.t But had not Aurelius 
the divine suffrage of his martyrdom? Aurelius is a mere 
youth: worthy as he is on account of his courage to be pro- 
moted to some higher rank of the clergy, he shall start in 
the lectorate. 

«| . . Interim placuit ut ab officio lectionis incipiat, quia 
et nihil magis congruit voci quae Deum gloriosa praedicatione 
confessa est quam celebrandis divinis lectionibus personare, 
post verba sublimia quae Christi martyrium prolocuta sunt 
euangelium Christi legere unde martyres fiunt, ad pulpitum 
post catastam venire. . . . Hunc igitur a me et a collegis 
qui praesentes aderant ordinatum sciatis.” ? 

Aurelius, then, who, as a martyr, went to the catasta, 
ie. the rack, will come, 85 a lector, to the pulpitum, 1.6. 
to the desk. He will read in the liturgical meetings the 
Gospel, the divine words. The lectores are once called by 
Cyprian ‘‘lectores doctorwm audienttum”: a title which 
implies that they are attached to the priests who teach the 
catechumens.? 

The members of the clergy being vowed to the service 
of things divine and spiritual, owe their service to the 
Church, to the altar, and to prayer; hence they are forbidden 
to accept functions which are purely secular and civil.* 


1“ Epistulae,” xxxvi. 1: ‘‘ In ordinationibus clericis, solemus vos 
ante consulere et mores ac merita singulorum communi consilio ponder- 
are.” 

2 Ibid. 2. Compare the thirty-ninth Letter. 

3 Ibid. xxrx.: ‘©. . . Quando .. . cum presbyteris doctoribus lec- 
tores diligenter probaremus, Optatum inter lectores doctorum audientium 
constituimus.” O. Rrrscut, ‘‘ Cyprian von Karthago” (Géttingen, 1885), 
p. 233. The theory which represents the ‘‘lectores” as the last ‘‘ pro- 
phets ” hardly deserves any mention. 

4 We may infer that the temptation to undertake such functions was 
great for the bishops in those ages, and that often in their anxiety to pro- 
vide for a poor Church they were drawn into the world of business. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 339 


Geminius Victor, Bishop of Furni, near Carthage, appointed 
in his will the priest Geminius Faustinus administrator of 
the goods he had left at his death; but Cyprian intervened 
with the reminder that no cleric can be named a guardian 
or executor. He justifies this prohibition by the condition 
in which the tribe of Levi had been placed by the Old 
Law: as they were bound to the service of the Temple, the 
members of this tribe were to live on the tithes given to 
them by the other tribes which owned the land: all which, 
he says, «was done by the authority of God who would not 
allow the Levites to be drawn off in any way from His 
service”. The decree forbidding ecclesiastics to be guardians 
or executors was enacted by the bishops previously to Cyp- 
rian’s election (episcopi antecessores nostri censuerunt) with 
the sanction that any one who, in his will, failed to observe 
it, should not be entitled, after his death, to have the Holy 
Sacrifice offered up for his soul, or his name pronounced 
in the memento of the Mass. Since, then, the Bishop 
Geminius Victor has not complied with the rule laid down 
by the bishops (formam nuper in concilio a sacerdotibus 
datam), Cyprian forbids the Holy Sacrifice to be offered up 
for him, or his name to be mentioned in the prayers of 
the Church, “ ut sacerdotum decretwm religiose ac necessarie 
factum servetur ὦ nobis:”’ bishops ought to be the first to 
obey episcopal decisions.! 

This thirty-ninth Letter supplies us with interesting de- 
tails concerning the remuneration of the clergy by the Church. 
Celerinus, who has been made a lector by St. Cyprian, is, 
like Aurelius, a martyr: although both are only lectors, 
Cyprian has conferred on them what he calls the “‘ preshyterw 
honorem,” which means that, even though they are not 
priests, they are to sit in the consessus, 1.6. on the bench of the 
priests, and participate in the same distributions (sportulae) 
as the priests, and share the monthly allowances (divisiones) 


Cyprian, ‘‘ De lapsis,” 6: ‘‘ Episcopi plurimi quos et hortamento esse 
oportet ceteris et exemplo, divina procuratione contempta, procuratores 
regum saecularium fieri, derelicta cathedra, plebe deserta, per alienas pro- 
vincias oberrantes, negotiationis quaestuosae nundinas aucupari, esuri- 
entibus in ecclesia fratribus habere argentum largiter velle, fundos 
insidiosis fraudibus rapere, usuris multiplicantibus foenus augere.” 

1  Kpistulae,” 1. 1-2. 


Ὁ" 


940 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


in equal quantities: “. . . ut et sportulis idem cum pres- 


byteris honorentur, ut divisiones mensurnas aequatis quan- 
titatibus partiantur, sessuri nobiscum.”’ ἢ 

The subordination of the plebs to the ordo is not such as 
to exclude the laity from all share in the government of the 
local Church. And, in what pertains to the welfare of the 
community, this right of the laity is upheld with a scrupulous 
deference both by Cyprian and by Pope Cornelius. Thus, 
for instance, in the eyes of Cyprian the reconciliation of 
the lapsi, who had fallen during the persecution of Decius, 
is a matter on which the whole Church should be consulted, 
according to the rule that questions of common interest 
relating to the government of the Church must be exa- 
mined by all in common.? Even supposing that this rule 
was not everywhere observed, we know at least that Cyprian 
resolved to follow it, when he became Bishop of Carthage. 
In matters which concern the whole Church, Cyprian is 
unwilling to pronounce sentence until he has first taken 
the advice of his clergy—i.e. of the priests and deacons, and 
obtained the assent of the plebs.® 

As we have seen, the plebs also takes part in the 
election of the bishop—a real part, but one which tends to 
become chiefly negative: the plebs might oppose the choice 
which, probably is most often made without its participation ; 
but this suffices to make it responsible for the actual choice 
and enables Cyprian to say that the plebs holds ‘‘ potestatem 
vel eligendi dignos sacerdotes vel indiqnos recusandi ”. 


1“ Epistulae,” xxx1x. 5. Compare “Epistulae,” x11.2: “. . . utcum 
ecclesia matre remanerent et stipendia eius episcopo dispensante percipe- 
rent”. The sportulae were certainly the shares in the offerings in kind 
made by the faithful. Euszzrus, “H. E.” v. 28, 10, relates that the 
heretical bishop Natalios received 150 denarii a month for his salary. Cf. 
Trrrut.. “ De Ieiunio,” 13: “ Episcopi universae plebi mandare ieiunia 
adsolent, non dico de industria stipium conferendarum, ut vestrae cap- 
turae est... .” 

2 ἐς Kpistulae,” xiv. 1. 

3 Ibid. Cf. “ Epistulae,” xxxiv. 4. Sonm, p. 234, draws attention to 
the shade of difference between consiliwm and consensus : the bishop asks 
the priests their consilivm, and the people its consensus. “The plebs 
says only, Aye.” 

4 Tbid. uxvu. 3. Cf. ΧΗΣ. Ὧι See in the “ Passio Montani,” 24 
(“ Acta Sanctorum Februarii,” vol. 111. p. 446), the speech of the martyr 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 941 


The Church continues to be what she was from the 
beginning: a social brotherhood, securing its members from 
misery and neglect. Cyprian bids Eucratius, the Bishop 
of a small Church (that of Thenae, it seems) not to allow 
a comedian—who had become a convert—to continue to 
give lessons for the stage; if the poor fellow gives as an 
excuse that his profession is, for him, the only way to get a 
living, the Bishop may place him among those Christians 
who receive their maintenance from the Church; and, if 
the Church of Thenae cannot afford to feed all its poor, the 
Bishop of Thenae may send the comedian to Carthage, 
where he will be fed and clothed! At the very height of 
the Decian persecution, Cyprian, absent from Carthage, 
writes to his clergy, priests and deacons, and begs them 
not to discontinue the aids they are wont to grant to the 
widows, the sick, all the poor, and also to indigent travellers. 
Cyprian has left a certain sum of money in the hands of 
one of his priests, and, fearing that this amount is already 
exhausted, he sends another sum, by an acolyte.” Some 
Churches of Numidia have suffered from the inroads of the 
Berbers ; a great many Christians have been taken prisoners. 
The Numidian bishops appeal to the charity of the Church 
of Carthage, for means to redeem the captives. We still 
possess the letter in which Cyprian thanks the Bishops of 
these sorely-tried Churches for having given him the oppor- 
tunity to help them in their distress: a collection has been 
made at Carthage among the clergy and faithful; conse- 
quently, Cyprian sends to the Bishops of Numidia a sum 


Flavianus, suggesting to the faithful that they should choose the priest 
Lucianus to replace Cyprian who has just departed from this life. 

1“ Epistulae,” mm. 2: ““ Quod si illic ecclesia non sufficit ut laboranti- 
bus praestet alimenta, poterit se ad nos transferre, et hic quod sibi ad 
victum atque ad vestitum necessarium fuerit accipere ”. 

*T[bid. viz. 1: ‘*Viduarum et infirmorum et omnium pauperum 
curam peto diligenter habeatis. Sed et peregrinis si qui indigentes 
fuerint sumptus suggeratis de quantitate mea propria quam apud Rogati- 
anum compresbyterum nostrum dimisi. Quae quantitas ne forte iam 
universa erogata sit, misi eidem per Naricum acoluthum aliam portionem, 
ut largius et promptius circa laborantes fiat operatio.” He gives similar 
instructions in ‘‘ Epistule,” v. 1. Likewise in ‘‘ Epistulae,” xm. 6 (in the 
variant reading of the “ Codex remensis ᾽)). 


942 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


of money that reaches quite 100,000 sesterces,! and he 
gives the names of the donors, that they may be remem- 
bered in the prayers of the Churches they have assisted. 

The brotherly union of the members of the Church con- 
tinues even in death. The faithful are buried together in 
the same cemeteries. It is for a Christian an act of impiety 
to accept the posthumous hospitality of a pagan sepulchre, 
and to be willing to sleep in the midst of dead who did not 
profess the Christian faith.? 


* δ 
* 


Membership of the Church of Carthage (and the same 
is true of all Churches) may be forfeited, for the bishop, the 
head and the foundation of the Church, may break off relations 
with a member when he judges it necessary: the ancient 
city exiled, the bishop excommunicates, and it is he who 
erants ecclesiastical communion. Here the word communion 
must be understood in its most comprehensive meaning, 
for it implies, together with the participation in the Sacred 
Mysteries, the fact of belonging to the Christian community 
—to its spiritual brotherhood and to its material solidarity.’ 
When excommunicating Felicissimus, Cyprian confines him- 
self to these words: ““ Abstentwm se a nobis sciat’’; and he 


1“ Kpistulae,” Lxu. 4: “ Misimus autem sestertia contum milia num- 
morum, quae istic in ecclesia cui de Domini indulgentia praesumus cleri 
et plebis apud nos consistentis collatione collecta sunt, quae vos illic pro 
vestra diligentia dispensabitis ”. 100,000 sesterces amount to about 4000 
or 5000 dollars or £800 or £1000. 

2 [bid. txvit. 6: ‘* Martialis praeter gentilium turpia et lutulenta 
convivia in collegio diu frequentata, et filios in eodem collegio exterarum 
gentium more apud profana sepulcra depositos et alienigenis consepultos 
...” Martialis is the Spanish Bishop of whom we shall speak later 
(p. 375). 

3 Ibid. tv. 24: “Quisque 1116 est et qualiscumque est, christianus 
non est qui in Christi ecclesia non est. Iactet se licet et philosophiam 
vel eloquentiam suam superbis vocibus praedicet, qui nec fraternam carit- 
atem nec ecclesiasticam unitatem tenuit, etiam quod prius fuerat amisit.” 
Cyprian speaks here of Novatian, a declared heretic. To those who are 
excommunicated he applies in all its rigour the saying : “ Outside the Church 
no salvation :”’ ‘‘Superbi et contumaces necantur, dum de ecclesia eiciun- 
tur : neque enim vivere foris possunt, cum domus Dei una sit et nemini 
salus esse nisi in ecclesia possit.” ‘‘ Epistulae,” 1v. 4. This fourth epistle 
was written previously to the Novatian crisis. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 343 


adds that such will be also the punishment of any one who 
joins Felicissimus: ‘‘ Quisque se conspirationt et factions 
etus adiunaxertt sciat se in ecclesia nobisewm communica- 
turum non 6886. There is still extant, in Cyprian’s corre- 
spondence, the sort of official document by which the priests 
of Carthage announce the excommunication of Felicissimus 
and of six of his followers.2 The excommunication is pre- 
ceded by an inquiry, which is conducted by the bishop 
and his presbytervwm: the sentence given by the bishop is 
notified to the people.® 

The reconciliation of the excommunicated is a public act, 
of which we find a moving description in the letter sent to 
Cyprian by Pope Cornelius. The case was that of a priest, 
Maximus, and two Roman confessors, Urbanus and Sidonius, 
who abandon the schism of Novatian and come back to the 
Catholic Church. Cornelius has them first questioned by 
some priests, in order to test their sincerity. A report is 
made to Cornelius, who orders that the presbytervwm be 
convoked. Five bishops from elsewhere, then present in 
Rome, take part as by right in the deliberation of the pres- 
byteriwm. This deliberation seems to take place privately, 
and each one of the consultors gives his opinion, which is 
immediately put down in writing. Then the three culprits 
are brought before the presbyterium: together with them 
come many of the faithful to plead in their behalf. Maxi- 
mus, Urbanus and Sidonius begin to speak: they recant 
their error and protest that, in their hearts, they have never 
ceased to be attached to the true Church: ‘‘ Cor nostrum 


1“ Bpistulae,” xu. 2. Cf. xu. 7: “Siquis ... in Felicissimi et 
satellitum eius partes concesserit et se haereticae factioni coniunxerit, 
sciat se postea ad ecclesiam redire et cum episcopis et plebe Christi com- 
municare non posse.” 

5 Tbid. χτατ. : ““ Abstinuimus a communicatione Felicissimum et Au- 
gendum, item Repostum de extorribus et Irenem Rutilorum et Paulam 
sarcinatricem. . . . Item abstinuimus Sophronium et ipsum de extorribus 
Soliassum budinarium.” 

3 Ibid. χτα. 2: “[Felicissimus] abstentum se a nobis sciat, quando 
ad fraudes eius et rapinas quas dilucida yeritate cognovimus, adulterii 
etiam crimen accedit, quod fratres nostri graves viri deprehendisse se 
nuntiaverunt.” The letter is sent by Cyprian, not to his people, but 
to his priests. Compare Tertuty. “ Apologet.” 39: “ Iudicatur magno 
cum pondere . . . Praesident probati quique seniores.” 


944 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


semper in ecclesia fuct,” and that there ought to be only one 
bishop in the Catholic Church, unwm episcopum in Catholica 
esse debere”. Then Cornelius pronounces the restoration 
of the priest Maximus to his priestly dignity, and that of 
the two confessors to their place in the Church, “ cum 
ingenti popult suffragio”’.1 We have here the full formal- 
ities of a judgment. 

This procedure is not, strictly speaking, the same as that 
applied to penitents, although there is a great similarity be- 
tween the two. The sins committed after baptism, can be 
forgiven, through the mercy of God: God, who conferred 
innocence upon us in baptism, did not intend to bind us by 
precept to an innocence beyond our reach; He permits 
us to expiate our faults by almsgiving.2 However, there are 
some especially grievous sins that cannot be thus expiated 
privately: such are adultery, apostasy, and homicide.? The 
lapsi, for instance, will be obliged to atone for their apos- 
tasy by penance, and to perform their penance before the 
whole Church. Only then will they be allowed to receive 
the imposition of the hands of the bishop in sign of peace and 
reconciliation ; after which they may approach Holy Com- 
munion.* Here then we have again a previous trial, a public 
penance, and a public sentence of reconciliation. 


1 « Kpistulee,” x~rx. 1-3 : ‘‘ Omni actu ad me perlato placuit contrahi 
presbyterium. Adfuerant etiam episcopi quinque, qui et eo die praesentes 
fuerunt. . . . Sententias nostras placuit in notitiam perferri, quas et 
subiectas leges. His ita gestis in presbyterium venerunt Maximus, Ur- 
banus, Sidonius et plerique fratres qui eis se adiunxerant, summis precibus 
desiderantes ut... Quorum voluntate cognita magnus fraternitatis 
concursus factus. . . . Quapropter iussimus ...” Compare the pro- 
cedure of the judgment by which St. Cyprian is condemned to death by 
the proconsul ; ‘‘ Acta proconsularia,” 3-4 (HARTEL, vol. In. p. cxii). 

32.“ De Opere et Eleem.” 11 and 14. 

3 “ De Bono patientiae,” 14: ‘* Adulterium, fraus, homicidium mortale 
crimen est.” In the time of St. Cyprian, the ecclesiastical discipline, 
which had become more lenient as regards the sins of lust and the sin of 
apostasy, was still unbending as regards murder. See Cyprian, “De 
dominica oratione,” 24: ‘‘Qui fratrem suum odit homicida est, nec 
ad regnum pervenit aut cum Deo vivit homicida. . . . Quale delictum 
est quod nec baptismo sanguinis potest ablui, quale crimen est quod 
martyrio non potest expiari!” 

4 De Lapsis,” 16: No lapsus must be admitted to Communion 


δε . ante expiata delicta, ante exomologesim factam criminis, ante 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 345 


The bishop reconciles others, but he himself cannot be 
reconciled; if he has to do penance, he must resign the 
episcopate and henceforth cannot rise above lay communion.! 

The custom of assembling in council the bishops of 
the same region is already ancient. Cyprian tells us of 
a bishop of Lambesa, Privatus, who “ante multos fere 
annos’’ was condemned for many grievous faults by the 
judgment of ninety bishops.? Later on we shall see Cyprian 
invoke the decision given by a council of Carthage, about 
the year 220, which was attended by seventy-one bishops 
belonging to two provinces—proconsular Africa and Nu- 
midia.* By provinces, we must understand imperial pro- 
vinces, for at this time ecclesiastical provinces are not yet in 
existence.* At the Council of Carthage in the year 256, 
there are present eighty-seven bishops from three provinces 


purgatam conscientiam sacrificio et manu sacerdotis, ante offensam placa- 
tam indignantis Domini et minantis”. On the share of the people in 
the judgment of the reconciliation of the laps, see ‘‘ Epistulae,” trx. 15, 
and Lxrv. 1. 

1 ἐς Rpistulae,” Lv. 11, yxxv. 2, yxvu. 6, xxx. 2. Cf. Eusms. ‘HH. E.” 
vi. 43, 10 (letter of Cornelius). 

2 Ibid. rx. 10. Still, the expression ‘‘ ante multos annos ” cannot 
designate a very remoteepoch. Privatus appeals to the council of Carth- 
age of the year 252. The sentence by which he had been deposed had 
been sanctioned by Pope Fabian (236-50), when Donatus (+ 249), Cyprian’s 
predecessor, was Bishop of Carthage. Brnson, ‘‘ Cyprian” (London, 
1897), p. 227. 

3 Ibid. τιχχτπ. 1. We learn from the letter of Pope Cornelius to 
Fabius that the Council of Rome, which condemns Novatian, is attended 
by sixty Italian bishops, and by “a great many more presbyters and dea- 
cons”. Eusss. “ἘΠ E.” vr. 43, 2. 

4 1014. xtvin. 3. Cf. DucHEsne, ‘ Origines du culte chrét,” p. 19 
and foll. “ Hist. anc.” vol. 1. pp. 526-7: ‘‘ Nowhere, before Dio- 
cletian, certainly not in the West, is there in the grouping of churches 
the least indication of a desire to reproduce the lines of the imperial pro- 
vinces. The Bishop of Carthage, or at least his Council, presides over all 
the African provinces—the Pro-consular, Numidian and Mauritanian [both 
Caesariensis and Tingitana]. Italy depends entirely on the See of Rome ; 
the See of Alexandria is the ecclesiastical centre for both Egypt and Cyren- 
aica, although in civil affairs these countries had separate administrators. 
Here, the connexions between the churches had nothing to do with the 
connexions of the civil administration, but arose solely out of the cireum- 
stances of their evangelization,’ which again depended on geographical 
conditions. ” 


346 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


—proconsular Africa, Numidia and Mauritania. An official 
record of the sessions of these assemblies is drawn up: the 
sententiae eprscoporum | of the Council of the year 256 are 
the oldest Latin specimen we have of such acts. 

The decrees passed by a council are regarded as authori- 
tative: the bishops themselves are not above the laws 
they have made in council. As we have seen, Cyprian 
recalled this principle, when the will of Geminius Victor, 
Bishop of Furni, came before him. The Council of 
Africa, presided over by Cyprian, cites the same principle 
against Therapius, Bishop of Bulla, who, by reconciling one 
of his priests before submitting him to a sufficiently long 
penance, had not complied with the rule laid down by the 
Council of the year 251: ‘‘ Quae res nos satis movit, recessum 
esse a decreti nostri auctoritate’”’? 

The bishops, then, are amenable to a council and can 
be deposed by it, as was the case with Privatus of Lambesa. 
The Council of Africa meets at Carthage generally twice a 
year, in the spring and in the autumn. Laymen take no 
part in councils. 

Cyprian, who frequently and emphatically proclaims that 
all bishops are equal, none the less exercises a real primacy, 
not only over proconsular Africa, but also over all Christian 
Africa, as far as the shores of the Atlantic. The Council 
of Africa assembles at Carthage, and he truly presides over 
it. Even outside its sessions he has authority to act in its 
name and carry out its decrees ; he speaks in its name to the 
Bishops of Africa and to those of foreign lands. 

For, beyond the boundaries of Africa, there is the orbis. 
The relations, by means both of messengers and of letters, 
which unite Carthage with Rome and Rome with Carthage, 
show the profound solidarity which binds the two Churches 
together: they hold themselves bound to observe the same 
rules of conduct and to maintain a like discipline. This is a 
thought prompted by charity, and likewise by their sense of 
duty. Cyprian writes to the Roman clergy: ‘‘ Ht dilectio 


? HaRTEL, vol. 1. p. 435 and foll. 

2“ Kpistulae,” τιν. 1. Cf. ibid. 2. 

3 Monceavx, vol. mu. p. 18. Rirscnt, p. 228, Harnack, “ Mis- 
sion,” vol, 1. pp. 394-5, 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 347 


communis et ratio exposcit, nihil conscientiae vestrae sub- 
trahere de his quae apud nos geruntur ut sit nobis circa 
utilitatem ecclesiasticae administrationis commune con- 
silium”’.! The clergy of Rome (the see was then vacant 
and Cornelius had not yet been elected) answers in terms of 
higher import: ‘‘ Omnes enim nos decet pro corpore totius 
Ecclesiae, cuius per varias quasque provincias membra 
digesta sunt, excubare’’.? 

A bishop, like that of Rome, on being elected, never 
fails to announce his election to a see like that of Carthage. 
This is not a recent custom, and Cyprian refers to it, as a 
rule that is generally observed. When he begs Cornelius to 
send him the testimony of the bishops who took part in his 
election to the see of Rome, he protests that he does not forget 
the established custom: ‘‘ Von veteres mores oblitt novum 
aliquid quaerebamus, nam satis erat utite episcopum factis 
litteris nuntiares”’® Another of St. Cyprian’s letters inti- 
mates that the election of Cornelius has been notified to 
all the bishops of the Christian world, and that all have 
recognized it.4 

As soon as the affair of Felicissimus breaks out at 
Carthage, Cyprian takes care to send to Pope Cornelius 
all the documents that refer to it, and begs the Pope 
to let the clergy and faithful of Rome read the letter 
which he, Cyprian, has written on the subject to the clergy 
and faithful of Carthage—in order that every one may be 


1“ Epistulae,” xxxv. 

2Tbid. xxxvi. 4. The case referred to is that of Privatus, of 
Lambesis. By “omnes nos” the Roman clergy mean the heads of the 
Churches. See “ Epistulae,” vu. 3, a letter of the Roman clergy, during 
the vacancy of the see, to the clergy of Carthage, Cyprian having then 
fled: “ Salutant vos fratres qui sunt in vinculis (notice the importance of 
confessors) et presbyteri et tota ecclesia, quae et ipsa cum summa sollicitu- 
dine excubat pro omnibus qui invocant nomen Domini.” The solicitude 
with which the clergy of Rome watches over all the Churches, must not 
be overlooked. 


3 Ibid. xv. 3. 
‘Ibid. ty. 8: “. . . coepiscoporum testimonio quorum numerus 
universus per totum mundum concordi unanimitate consensit”. We 


recall the words of Tertullian, then a Montanist: ‘‘ Non Ecclesia 
numerus episcoporum”’, ‘‘ De Pudicit.”” ΧΧΙ, 


948 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


well acquainted with the whole affair, “‘wt tam istie quam 
illre circa omnia per nos fraternitas instruatur”’ Cyprian 
receives and communicates to his Church the letter in which 
Cornelius announces his election: he has received at the 
same time a memorial (labrum) sent by Novatian’s party, 
which is a formal requisition against Cornelius. Cyprian 
does not communicate this libel to his Church, but asks 
Cornelius for information which will enable him to refute it. 
He informs by letters all the African bishops of the legiti- 
macy of the election of Cornelius, in order—as he himself 
writes to Cornelius—“ ut te wniversi collegae nostri et commu- 
nicationem tuam rd est catholicae ecclesiae unitatem pariter 
et caritatem probarent firmiter ac tenerent”.? 

On his part, Cornelius complains that the followers of 
Novatian have appealed to all the churches;’’* and he in- 
forms the churches—we know that he does so for that 
of Carthage—of the incidents and vicissitudes of the 
schism. Would that such accounts were always simple 
and true! But there are already in the Church informers 
and mischief-makers: witness the letter in which Cyprian 
complains that some have spoken at Rome of the conduct 
of the Bishop of Carthage ‘without due sincerity and 
fidelity ’’.5 

All the Churches being dispersed over the world, but 
bound together through their bishops, there is but one Church, 
as there is but one episcopate: the unity of the episcopate 
manifests the unity of the Church. It is a unity that is 
everywhere cemented, ‘‘connexam et ubique conjunctam 
Catholicae ecclesiae unitatem’’.® ‘For us,” writes Cyprian 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,” xiv. 4. 2 Ibid. xuvimt. 3. 

3 Ibid. xurx. 1: “*. . . quod per omnes ecclesias litterae calumniis 
et maledictis plenae eorum nomine frequentes missae fuissent, et paene 
omnes ecclesias perturbassent”. Cf. ‘‘ Epistulae,” Lv. 5: “. . . quae 
litterae per totum mundum missae sunt et in notitiam ecclesiis omnibus 
et universis fratribus perlatae ”. 

4 Tbid. 1. 

5 Ibid. xx. 1: ‘‘Quoniam comperi, fratres carissimi, minus sim- 
pliciter et minus fideliter vobis renuntiari quae hic a nobis et gesta 
sunt et geruntur. .. .” 

ὁ Ibid. τν. 24: ‘Cum sit a Christo una Ecclesia per totum mun- 
dum in multa membra divisa, item episcopatus unus episcoporum multo- 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 349 


to Pope Cornelius, «the Church is one, we have but one 
soul and this concord is indivisible: Nam cum nobis 
et ecclesia una sit, et mens tiwneta, et mdividua con- 
cordia”’.! One and the same faith, one and the same tradi- 
tion is observed by the dispersed bishops: ‘‘. . . episcopos 
plurimos ecclesiis dominicis in toto mundo divina dignatione 
praepositos euangelicae veritatis ac dominicae traditionis 
tenere rationem, nec ab eo quod Christus magister et prae- 
cepit et gessit humana et novella institutione decedere”.* 

This—we are told—is truly the hierarchical idea of 
the Church, and this idea is wrought out by St. Cyprian ! 
The Catholicism of Ireneus and of Tertullian rested on a 
doctrinal basis, that of Cyprian rests on ἃ hierarchical 
basis. But we are constrained to recognize that the hier- 
archical idea of the Church is found already in Ireneus and 
Tertullian, and that, in the East, in the first half of the third 
century, it is already embodied in the facts.* Decidedly 
Cyprian cannot be claimed as the originator of the hier- 
archical idea. 

What had still to be made clear in Cyprian’s time, was 
neither the apostolicity of the faith common to all the 
Churches, nor the divine right of the episcopate, nor even 
the unity, so conspicuous to all, of the universal episcopate. 
But, at a critical moment, when this unity was about to 
be menaced from within, it was necessary to familiarize 
the Christian people with the inner law of their nature, to 
explain how the Holy Ghost co-operates in its preservation, 
and how the see of Peter is not only the source, but also 
the perpetual guarantee of its endurance; in a word, it 
was necessary to formulate the divine constitution of 
Catholicism. 

The glory of such a demonstration all but fell to 
Cyprian’s treatise ‘‘ De Unitate ecclesiae’”’. 


” 


rum concordi numerositate diffusus. . . .” Observe the words: concors 
numerositas. 
1 εἰ Kpistule,” tx. 1. 2 Tbid. txu1. 1, 


8 Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 416. Cf. Loors, p. 204, 
δ 5 3 if Ρ 


950 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 
ΤΙ 


Cyprian had ruled the Church of Carthage for about a 
year when the persecution of Decius broke out, in the autumn 
of the year 249. The bishop left Carthage and found a safe 
place of refuge, from whence he remained in daily intercourse 
with his Church, whose chief trial was caused not so much 
by the number of her martyrs, as by the number of her 
children who fell away—the lapsi.1. In the height of the 
persecution, at the time when the number of apostasies was 
multiplying, Cyprian, still in his shelter, was asked by four 
priests of Carthage to authorize them to reconcile the lapsi, 
without previous penance, solely on the presentation of a letter 
from some martyr or confessor of the faith. This request 
raised the question whether an apostate could be recon- 
ciled to the Church. It seems clear that Cyprian and his 
clergy inclined unanimously towards indulgence in this 
respect, but the request raised the less-expected question 
whether a martyr could, by pleading in behalf of one who had 
lapsed, exempt him from the expiatory exercises of penance 
and, in effect, declare him absolved from his sin, leaving to 
the priests merely to ratify this absolution by admitting him 
tocommunion. The martyrs were thus assuming a power re- 
served to the bishop, and Cyprian refused to grant the request 
of the four Carthaginian priests, declaring that he intended to 
postpone the study of the case until his return, when he 
could consult with his clergy and people.” 

But some priests—probably those who had written to St. 
Cyprian—ignored Cyprian’s decision, and did not hesitate to 
admit the laps: to communion, without delay, without pen- 
ance, on the mere sight of a letter from a martyr.* Those 
of the clergy who remained faithful in this time of confusion, 


1 See “ Etudes Whist. et de théol. positive, lére série,’ pp. 111 and 
foll., ‘‘ La crise novatienne ”. 

2 “ὁ Epistulae,” xiv. 4. This pretension on the part of the martyrs is 
explained by the prevalent belief that the Holy Ghost granted a special 
help to the martyrs ; the Holy Ghost wasin them. The pretension of the 
Carthaginian martyrs is in line with Origen’s theory of the power of the 
** spirituals ”. 

ὁ Ibid. xv. 1, 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 351 


begged Cyprian to interfere. The latter thought best to 
give a provisional answer: those lapst who had received 
from some martyr a letter of intercession, might be reconciled 
by the priests, but only if they were in danger of death: 
otherwise, they must await the return of Cyprian.' 

The Bishop of Carthage communicated his decision to 
many bishops, his colleagues, who answered that his feeling 
was theirs, and that it was in conformity with the Catholic 
faith,? which, placed in the hands of the bishops the power 
to reconcile as well as the power to baptize. The See of 
Rome was vacant, since the death of Pope Fabian, on 
20 January, 250. The clergy, who administered the Church, 
were inclined to rigorism and blamed Cyprian for what was 
called ‘his flight,’ but they agreed with him that it was 
better to take no decision on the subject until peace was 
restored. They had written a letter in this sense to the 
bishops of Sicily; and they had come to an agreement with 
other bishops, some from near at hand, some from far off 
regions: “ ... cum quibusdam episcopis vicinis nobis et 
adpropinquantibus et quos ex aliis provinctis longe positis 
persecutionis istius ardor eiecerat, ante constitutionem 
episcopt nihil innovandum putavimus”’.t There also, then, 
only such of the lapsi as were in danger of death might be 
reconciled ; the others must wait in suspense. 

Cyprian does not allow his priests to take any decision 
without him; the priests of Rome declare their unwilling- 
ness to take any decision, as long as no bishop presides over 
them: is not this a strong affirmation of the bishop’s right, 
both at Carthage and at Rome? The Novatian crisis, we 
are told, led St. Cyprian to define the Church as a com- 
munity ruled by its bishop, whereas until then he had con- 
ceived it to be a consortium of the bishop, the clergy and the 
laity... But from these declarations, Roman and African, which 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,” xrx. 2. 3 Ibid. xxv. 

5 Toid. xxx. 5. 4 Tbid. 8. 

5 Harnack, ““ Dogmeng.” vol. 14, p, 417. In this passage Harnack 
contends that the texts in which Cyprian regards the Church as “ con- 
stituta in episcopo et in clero et in omnibus credentibus ” date from an 
earlier period, and represent ‘‘ the old idea on the subject”. On the 
contrary Cyprian writes in ‘‘ Epistulae,” xxxim. 1: “. . . quando ecclesia 


902 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


are previous to the appearance of Novatian, we see that the 
Church is constituted hierarchically, and that the supreme 
power is truly in the hands of the bishop. Of the in- 
stitutions that are then in existence Rome affirms already 
her ‘‘ Nihil innovandum”’. 

The bishop is the foundation of his Church: such is the 
leading idea of the thirty-third letter of St. Cyprian—a first 
draft of the ‘‘De Unitate”. The lapsi who have dared to 
send me a letter in the name of the Church, “‘ ecclesiae no- 
mine,” are indeed bold, he says. Perhaps they would like to 
be taken for the Church, “‘ ecclesiam se volunt esse”. . . . 
But a choice must be made between the bishop whose will 
is that the laps: should wait, and those lapsi who defy the 
bishop’s authority: on whom, then, is the Church founded ? 

‘“‘ Dominus noster, culus praecepta metuere et servare de- 
bemus, episcopi honorem et ecclesiae suae rationem disponens 
in euangelio loquitur et dicit Petro: Ego tibi dico quia tu es 
Petrus, et super istam petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam, et 
portae inferorum non vincent eam, et tabi dabo claves regni 
caelorum, et quae ligaveris super terram erunt ligata et in 
caelis, et quaecumque solveris super terram erunt soluta. et 
in caelis. Inde per temporum et successionum vices epis- 
coporum ordinatio et ecclesiae ratio decurrit ut ecclesia super 
episcopos constituatur et omnis actus ecclesiae per eosdem 
praepositos gubernetur.” 1 

Cyprian vindicates, in the name of the Gospel, the bishop’s 
dignity (honor): the Church is founded on the bishops, 
each Church is ruled by its bishop, and this divine constitu- 
tion rests on the words of Christ to St. Peter. The words 
Tu es Petrus established the episcopacy, since the power in- 
stituted in Peter’s person has passed on to the bishops, as 


in episcopo et clero et in omnibus stantibus sit constituta, absit . . . ut 
ecclesia esse dicatur lapsorum numerus”. He means that the Church 
is made up of the bishops, the clergy and the faithful who have not 
fallen away, in contrast with the lapsi, who pretend to lay down the law. 
But he does not mean that the Church is built upon the faithful as well 
as upon the bishops and the clergy : neither before Cyprian’s time nor in 
his writings was there any question about the subordination of the plebs 
to the ordo, within the unity of each Church. It is enough to recall 
Origen. 
1 << Kpistulae,” xxx. 1. Cf. txvr. 8. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 353 


an inheritance, “‘ per successionum vices”. In virtue of this 
inherited power, the bishop presides over the whole activity 
of his Church. Therefore, no one can be a minister of re- 
conciliation without his approval and against his will. 

These declarations of principle did not suffice to restore 
order and bring back to their duty the rebellious priests. 
Cyprian felt compelled to threaten the recalcitrants with ex- 
clusion from his communion.! 

Apparently these threats did not produce the result 
Cyprian expected, for a short time after, he had to excom- 
municate the prime mover in the rebellion of the lapsi, Feli- 
cissumus. From Cyprian’s forty-first Letter we learn that 
Felicissimus was accused of misappropriating funds and was 
suspected of adultery: these charges were apparently to be 
investigated after Cyprian’s return, in the presence of the 
council of Carthage. But the notorious scandal was the 
revolt of Felicissimus against Cyprian: Felicissimus had on 
his side a certain number of the faithful (porteonem plebis) ; 
and strong in their support, the more so that he was pleading 
their cause, he had done his utmost to thwart the endeavours 
of the priests whom Cyprian had appointed to bring back 
the lapsi to the path of duty, declaring that those who 
obeyed Cyprian’s commands would by that very fact break 
with him—Felicissimus: ‘‘secwm in morte non communi- 
carent’’.® In his folly, Felicissimus went so far as to 
excommunicate without hope of forgiveness those who 
abandoned his party and submitted to Cyprian.‘ 

In acting as he did, Felicissimus, it is true, betrayed the 


1“ Hpistulae,” xxxiv. 3: ‘‘Interea si quis immoderatus et praeceps 
sive de nostris presbyteris vel diaconis sive de peregrinis ausus fuerit ante 
sententiam nostram communicare cum lapsis, a communicatione nostra 
arceatur, apud omnes nos causam dicturus temeritatis suae, quando in 
unum permittente Domino convenerimus. ” 

? Ibid. xu1. 2: *Quae omnia cognoscemus, quando in unum cum 
collegis pluribus permittente Domino convenerimus ”’. 


δ, Tbid. 1. 
4 Ibid. 2: “©... accipiat sententiam quam prior dixit, ut abstentum 
se a nobis sciat”. Although separated at this time from his clergy and 


his people, Cyprian pronounces the excommunication of Felicissimus 
in words which affirm the principle of episcopal supremacy. However, 
Cyprian does not pronounce excommunication without hope of forgiveness. 


23 


354 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


nature of his ulterior designs. The election of Cyprian to the 
See of Carthage had not been made without opposition ; and 
the opponents sided with Felicissimus. Cyprian could 
boldly denounce in this rebellion what he calls the “ antiqua 
alla contra episcopatum mewm venena,” and “‘ veterem contra 
nos impugnationem”’.1 But he does not waste time on these 
designs of Felicissimus and of the few Carthaginian priests 
who belong to his party; he desires to have the case limited 
to the question of the lapst and to the indisputable principle 
that dominates the whole controversy ; to reconcile the lapst 
without demanding penance of them, is to oppose the Gos- 
pel; it is “‘ecclesiae pudicitiam corrumpere et veritatem 
euangelicam violare’’.2 Then, what kind of reconciliation 
can be given by priests who are outside the Church? Here 
Cyprian comes to another argument which we shall meet 
again in the ‘‘De Unitate,” viz. that outside the Church 
there is neither sacrifice, nor priesthood, nor reconciliation.* 

The faction of the lapsi hoped for the support of Rome 
and especially of the bishop who must soon be elected. One 
of the rebellious priests of Carthage was despatched to Rome 
to work for the election of a Pope who would break with 
Cyprian and acknowledge the rival whom the party of 
Felicissimus was doubtless preparing to set up against him.‘ 
Their intrigues failed. The election of the Roman Bishop 
took place towards the middle of March, and the priest 
Cornelius, who had nothing to do with these quarrels, was 
chosen. The Roman iaction, which this choice discon- 
certed, first murmured, then passed to deeds, and, not- 
withstanding the legitimacy of the election of Cornelius, 
elected his unfortunate competitor, the Roman priest No- 
vatian. 

St. Cyprian could not hesitate: the election of Cornelius 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,” xii. 1. 2 Ibid. 4. 

3 Ibid. 5: ** Pacem nune offerunt qui ipsi non habent pacem, nec 
ecclesiam lapsos reducere et revocare permittunt qui de ecclesia recesser- 
unt. Deus unus est, et Christus unus et una ecclesia, et cathedra una 
super Petrum Domini voce fundata. Aliud altare constitui, aut sacer- 
dotium novum fieri, praeter unum altare et unum sacerdotium non 
potest ”. 

4 DucHESNE, “‘ Hist. anc.,” vol. 1. pp. 407-8. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 355 


was recognized as legitimate, and that of Novatian as having 
been made in spite of and against the legitimate Church, 
“contra ecclesiam catholicam ;”+ and, as some emissaries 
from Novatian were trying to make partisans among the 
Christians of Carthage, Cyprian broke off communion with 
them and immediately reported the fact to Pope Cornelius. 
At the same time, two African bishops were sent to Rome 
to aid in destroying the schism and bringing back the 
Romans who were making it, to the unity of the Church 
which at Rome was alone Catholic, “ut ad catholicae 
ecclesiae unitatem scisst corporis membra componerent”’? 
Cyprian deemed it his duty to work with all his might for 
the restoration of unity at Rome. He writes to Cornelius :— 

“‘ Hoc enim vel maxime, frater, et laboramus et laborare 
debemus ut unitatem a Domino et per apostolos nobis suc- 
cessoribus traditam quantum possumus obtinere curemus, et 
quod in nobis est balabundas et errantes oves, quas quo- 
rumdam pervicax factio et haeretica temptatio a matre se- 
cernit, in ecclesia colligamus.”’ ® 

When writing thus on the subject of the Roman schism, 
St. Cyprian was repeating the arguments he had formerly 
employed when dealing with the faction of Felicissimus at 
Carthage. Unity must above all prevail in every Church, 
because Christ desired unity, and unity is an inheritance 
transmitted by the Apostles to the bishops, their successors. 
We shall meet with these arguments again in the “ De 
Unitate ”’. 

Besides writing to Pope Cornelius, Cyprian writes to 
the confessors who form Novatian’s party at Rome a letter 
in which he praises the courage they exhibited in the time 
of persecution, and recognizes the sincerity of the scruples 
which led them to believe that the lapsi ought not to 
be reconciled; but he reminds them that attachment to the 
unity of their Church is also a duty, and that they are in- 
excusable for having set up a bishop against the legitimate 
bishop. By thus acting, they have run counter to the order 
established by God, to the law of the Gospel, “contra institu- 
tionis catholicae unitatem” : in consenting to have a bishop 


1 ¢¢ pistulae,” xiv. 1. 2 Ibid. xtv. 1. 3 Ibid. 3. 
23 * 


356 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


other than the one already recognized, they have consented 
to have a church other than the Church, and such conduct 
is sacrilegious and unlawful.! Cornelius having announced 
to Cyprian the return of some of the confessors to the legiti- 
mate Church, the latter replies expressing his joy that they 
should “unitatis ac veritatis domicilium repetisse,” and break 
off with the “proditores fider et ecclesiae catholicae im- 
pugnatores”.2 Some of the Christians of Carthage whom 
those “proditores fider” had won over, also come back to 
the true Church. The light has entered all hearts, “et 
ecclesia catholica una esse nec scinda nec dividi posse mon- 
strata est”? 

When the persecution came to an end, Cyprian called 
the Council of Carthage, in May 251. The Council had first 
to judge Felicissimus. It is probable that Cyprian took no 
part in this judgment, in which he was the accuser: the 
sentence was passed by his colleagues, who transmitted it 
immediately to Pope Cornelius.‘ The priests who were at 
the head of the faction of the Carthaginian /apsi were con- 
demned, as well as Felicissimus, whom they had made their 
deacon,® a fact which shows their desire to organize them- 
selves into a separate church. Moreover Novatus, the most 
compromised of all the priests of the party of Carthaginian 


1 ἐς Epistulae,” xivr. 1: “‘. . . contra institutionis catholicae unitatem 
alium episcopum fieri consensisse, id est, quod nec fas est nec licet fieri, 
ecclesiam alteram institui.” 

2 Tbid. τα. 1. 

3 Ibid. 2. We must, however, clear up a point which might be mis- 
interpreted. The unity insisted on by Cyprian is the unity in each 
church. The term ‘‘ ecclesia catholica” refers, here, not to the whole 
Church, but to each particular church. Cornelius writes to Fabius 
(Euses, “Ἢ. E.” νι. 43, 11): ἕνα ἐπίσκοπον δεῖ εἶναι ἐν΄ καθολικῇ 
ἐκκλησίᾳ. Assuredly Cornelius did not mean to tell the Bishop of Antioch 
that there can be but one bishop in the whole catholic world. The Roman 
confessors who submit to Cornelius (‘‘ Epistulae,” xirx. 2) say: ‘‘ Nos Cor- 
nelium episcopum sanctissimae catholicae ecclesiae electum a Deo scimus 

. Nec ignoramus unum episcopum in catholica esse debere.” See for 
the same use of the term ‘‘ Epistulae,” xiv. 1. Hence the meaning of the 
word “catholic” is determined by the extension of the word ‘‘church”. 
This observation is very important. 

4Tbid. xiv. 4. Regarding Cyprian’s absence from the trial of 
Felicissimus, cf. Benson, pp. 132-3. 

5 Ibid. ται. 2. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 357 


lapsi, anticipating the condemnation which they saw was 
inevitable, had gone to Rome, and had there been one 
of the instigators of Novatian’s election! At Carthage, 
then, even before the Council had condemned the schismatical 
faction, the cause of unity had triumphed. 

The treatise ‘‘De Unitate ecclesiae”’ was published at 
this precise juncture, when, after the restoration of order at 
Carthage, the case of Novatian had yet to be settled at 
Rome. The supposition has been made that the treatise 
‘‘De Unitate’’ was read in the Council of Carthage, in May, 
251; this has been inferred from the following words of St. 
Cyprian: “ Quam unitatem tenere firmiter et vindicare de- 
bemus, maxime episcopt qui in ecclesia praesidemus’’.” 
The hypothesis is plausible, on condition that we do not 
exclude from this first hearing of the ‘‘ De Unitate”’ either 
the clergy or the people of Carthage.? At all events the 
‘“De Unitate’’ was not concerned with the case of Felicis- 
simus, on which Cyprian had fully expressed his mind be- 
fore the Council met and in deciding which he had taken no 
part during the Council, as we have already seen. But we 
have also seen that emissaries from Novatian had done their 
utmost at Carthage to recruit adherents for their cause; 
that Cyprian had excommunicated them and had sent to 
Rome two African bishops, to aid Cornelius in reducing 
the schism of Novatian: it is not surprising, then, that he 
should have wished to render further aid by composing a 
treatise on the principles of Church unity as held at Carthage ; 
such a book would enlighten the Carthaginians if they needed 
enlightenment; it would be still more appreciated by the 
Romans, for whom especially it was written. 

% % 
* 


1“ Kpistulae,” ti. 2: “ Idem est Novatus, qui apud nos primum dis- 
cordiae incendium seminavit, qui quosdam istic ex fratribus ab episcopo 
segregavit. . . . Ipse est qui Felicissimum satellitem suum diaconum nec 
permittente me. . . constituit”. Novatus goes to Rome, and “ quoniam 
pro magnitudine sua debeat Carthaginem Roma praecedere, illic maiora et 
graviora commisit : qui istic adversus ecclesiam diaconum fecerat, illic 
episcopum fecit ”. 

5 “4 0 Unit.” 5. Bunson, p. 181. 

Ὁ ἐς Epistulae,” tiv. 4: ‘*. . . libellis quos hic nuper legeram ”. That 
letter, sent to Maximus and to the Roman confessors who had given up 
Novatian’s schism, is, as it were, the dedication of the ‘‘ De Unitate”’. 


358 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Let us now examine the argument of the “De Unitate 
ecclesiae ’’. 

The duty of every Christian is to defend himself against 
the ever-changing wiles of the devil. Formerly, the enemy 
made use of idolatry to seduce men: now that the idols are 
given up, their temples abandoned, and the Christians are 
increasing in number, he has recourse to a new device and, 
under the cover of the Christian name, seeks to seduce 
unwary Christians, by fomenting schisms and _ heresies. 
What can we oppose to this artifice of the devil? A funda- 
mental principle, that of ecclesiastical unity (‘‘ Unit.” 1-3). 

For those who defer to the teaching of the Divine Master 
it is easy to establish this principle. 

‘“‘Loquitur Dominus ad Petrum: Ego tibi dico, inguit, 
quia tu es Petrus et super istam petram aedificabo ecclesiam 
meam, et portae wnferorum non vincent eam. Dabo tibi 
claves regnt caelorum : et quae ligaveris super terram erunt 
ligata et im caelis, et quaecumque solveris super terram 
erunt soluta et in caelrs.” Super unum ecclesiam aedificat 
(« Unit.” 4). 

Thus the Lord has built His Church upon one sole Apostle. 
Does this mean that this Apostle enjoys a privilege which the 
other Apostles have not received? No indeed, Cyprian 
somewhat hastily answers, since after His resurrection, 
Christ gives to all His Apostles the same powers, ‘‘ apostolis 
omnibus parem spotestatem,’ when He sends them as He 
was sent by His Father, and gives them the Holy Ghost 
with the power of forgiving sins (John xx. 21). However 
numerous the Apostles, however numerous the bishops who 
have succeeded them, unity begets unity. 

“|. . tamen ut unitatem manifestaret, unitatis e1usdem 
originem ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit. Hoc 
erant utique et ceteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio 
praediti et honoris et potestatis, sed exordium ab unitate pro- 
ficiscitur, ut ecclesia Christi una monstretur”’ (‘‘ Unit.” 4). 

Hence, in the eyes of Cyprian, Christ’s words to Peter 
mean only that each church is one, since the first of all the 
churches, that founded by Christ on Peter, is one.! 


1 Cyprian frequently returns to the same contention, that Christ 
founds the Church on Peter, and every church reproduces this primordial 


a a ee 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 359 


As a fact, the Church has spread all over the world, 
without loss of unity, even as a tree whose boughs are 
many, and as a river that diffuses its waters: do not break 
a branch from the tree, for once broken it can live no 
longer; do not separate the stream from its source, for it will 
dry up. The episcopate is one, all the bishops hold it severally 
and conjointly: ‘‘ Hpiscopatus wnus est, cuius a singulis in 
solidum pars tenetur’”’ (‘* Unit.’’ 5). 

The Church is the spouse of Christ, a chaste spouse, 
having but one home and one chamber: whoever is not with 
her, is with an adulteress. Such a one is a bastard who has 
not God for his father, since he has not the Church for his 
mother. ‘Habere non potest Deum patrem qui ecclesiam 
non habet matrem.” The Church is the ark of Noe outside 
which all perish. Whoever is not with Christ is against 
Him: he who does not gather with Christ, scatters, and 
therefore ‘Qui alibi praeter ecclesiam colligit Christi ec- 
clesiam spargit” (“ Unit.” 6). St. Cyprian accumulates 
the figures which seem to him apt to inculcate this unity. 
The seamless coat of Christ is for him a new ‘ wnitates 
sacramentum” (“ Unit.” 7). So too is the privilege granted 
by Josue to the house of Rahab and the command to eat 
the paschal lamb “in una domo”. The word of Christ 
‘““unus grea et unus pastor” (John x. 16) affords a further 
argument to the same effect (‘‘ Unit.” 8). 

Whoever separates himself from the Church forfeits all 
the blessings of which she is the source. In their fruitless 
usurpations, they make themselves bishops, but they are not 


” 


unity. ‘‘ Epistulae,” tmx. 7 and 14, uxvi. 8, Lxx1. 3, uxxm. 7. Of. 
Benson, pp. 197-9. Speaking of St. Peter, and alluding to the fact that 
he was married, Tertullian had already said: ‘‘ Petrum solum invenio 
maritum, propter socrum : monogamum praesumo, per Ecclesiam, quae 
super illum aedificata omnem gradum ordinis sui de monogamis erat col- 
locatura”. ‘De Monog.” 8. This isa Montanistic treatise. Tertullian 
interprets the Super hance petram aedificabo, as referring to the Apostle 
Peter : the Church is built upon Peter, retrospectively. The close con- 
nexion between the interpretation of Cyprian and that of Tertullian will 
be noticed. D’Atks, “Tertullien,” p. 216. Regarding the various mean- 
ings given by the Fathers to the 7'w es Petrus, see Launot, “ Opera omnia,” 
vol. v. (1731), pp. 99-124 (letter of 1661); but we must bear in mind 
Launoi’s Gallican and quasi-anarchistic spirit. 


360 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


bishops: ‘‘ Vemine episcopatum dante episcopi sibi nomen 
adsumunt” (‘ Unit.” 10). The baptism conferred outside the 
Church is no baptism: ‘‘ Non abluuntur illic homines sed 
potius sordidantur, nec purgantur delicta, sed immo cumu- 
lantur” ( Unit.” 11). Let notseceders think they can defend 
themselves by means of texts; let them not say that, in the 
words of Christ, wherever two or three are gathered together 
in His name, He is with them. When He spoke thus, Christ 
was referring exclusively to His faithful followers and to His 
Church: “‘ Dominus de ecclesia sua loquitur et ad hos qui 
sunt in ecclesia loquitur” (‘ Unit.” 12). On the contrary, 
to these unworthy Christians who leave the Church, He 
said that when any one comes to pray he must cast aside 
all resentment against his neighbour; now, what kind 
of prayer, what kind of sacrifice can such enemies of 
brotherly peace offer up? ‘‘Quae sacrificia celebrare se 
credunt aemulr sacerdotum? Secum esse Christum cum 
collects fuerint opinantur, qui extra Christ ecclesiam 
colliguntur?” (‘ Unit.” 18). Not even by martyrdom can 
their lack of brotherly charity be expiated: ‘ Jnexprabilis 
et gravis culpa discordiae nec passione purgatur: esse 
martyr non potest qui in ecclesia non est” (“‘ Unit.” 14). 

St. Cyprian concentrates all his aversion for seceders into 
the following passage :— 

‘‘ Aversandus est talis atque fugiendus quisque fuerit ab 
ecclesia separatus. Perversus est huiusmodi et peccat et 
est a semetipso damnatus. An esse sibi cum Christo vide- 
tur qui adversum sacerdotes Christi facit, qui se a cleri eius 
et plebis societate secernit? Arma ille contra ecclesiam 
portat, contra Dei dispositionem repugnat. Hostis altaris, 
adversus sacrificium Christi rebellis, pro fide perfidus, pro 
religione sacrilegus, inobsequens servus, filius impius, frater 
inimicus, contemptis episcopis et Dei sacerdotibus derelictis, 
constituere audet aliud altare, precem alteram inlicitis voci- 
bus facere, dominicae hostiae veritatem per falsa sacrificia 
profanare, nec scire quoniam qui contra ordinationem Dei 
nititur ob temeritatis audaciam divina animadversione punitur 
{Ὁ Unit: 5.17}: 

The abettors of schisms,.who must be compared to Core, 
Dathan and Abiron, can offer no excuse; they are still more 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 361 


blameworthy if they are men who, in the time of persecu- 
tion, were courageous confessors (‘‘ Unit.” 18-22). Hence 
the faithful must leave these culprits to their fate: “Unus 
Deus est, et Christus unus, et wna ecclesia evus, et fides wna, 
et plebs una in solidam corporis unitatem concordiae glutino 
copulata : scindi unitas non potest, nec corpus unum dis- 
cidio compaginis separart” (( Unit.” 23). 

The allusion to the confessors who have done their duty 
during the persecution does not of course refer to the party 
of the Carthaginian lapsi; it refers to the Roman con- 
fessors, such as Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius, Macarius, who 
have come back to the lawful Church, and it is, besides, 
a dexterous and honourable invitation extended to the other 
confessors, who, influenced by their rigorism, still adhere to 
Novatian. It is easy to recognize Novatian and the rigorist 
priests by whom he is surrounded, in those “ mnistros 
iustitiae’”’ who preach ‘ desperationem sub obtentu sper” 
{{ {Ππ|0 2} 9}. 

Of all the arguments marshalled by Cyprian, there is 
not one which does not directly aim at Novatian as the chief 
abettor of schism: ‘‘nemine episcopatum dante episcopr 
sibi nomen adsumunt’”’+ The controversial and occasional 
character of the ‘‘De Unitate” may help to excuse the 
weakness of some of its reasonings, which are more oratori- 
cal than conclusive. But when we have set aside considera- 
tions of this nature, we find that Cyprian bases the unity of 
the Church on two foundations. 

The first is Christ’s address to St. Peter. 

The second is that the blessings imparted by Christ, 
especially baptism, the priesthood and the altar, belong to 
the legitimate Church and to no other. The principle laid 
down here by St. Cyprian will give rise later to the baptismal 
controversy, and we shall then have occasion to examine it 
more thoroughly. For the present we need only note that 
in the ‘‘De Unitate” this principle is strongly insisted on. 
Whoever is outside the Church is condemned by the words of 
the Saviour: “‘ Qut non mecum colligit spargit” (Matt. χιι. 
30). Outside the Church, no baptism: ‘“ Non abluuntur 


1“De Unit.” 10; Benson, p. 181. Tremont, vol. tv. p. 105, had 
already surmised that Cyprian had in view Novatian, and not Felicissimus. 


362 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


illic homines’’; outside the Church, no sacrifice: “ Falsa 
sacrificia’”’; outside the Church, no episcopate: “ Hpiscopi 
nomen”; we may add: outside the Church, no martyrs. 

The words of Christ to Peter furnish an argument which 
St. Cyprian has used in letters written before the ‘‘ De 
Unitate”. We have found it in the thirty-third Letter, sent 
to the lapsi of Carthage: where Cyprian finds in the words 
of Christ to St. Peter the institution of the episcopal dignity 
and the principle itself of the Church,! for the Church rests 
on the bishops. We have found it in the forty-third 
Letter, directed to all the faithful of Carthage: where 
Cyprian finds in the same words of Christ to St. Peter the 
affirmation that there is but one cathedra in each Church. 
We have found it in the forty-fifth Letter, addressed to 
Pope Cornelius: where Cyprian speaks of the unity that 
comes from Christ and comes from Christ to the bishops 
through the Apostles whose successors they are.” 


1“ Kpistulae,” xxxuz. 1: ‘* Dominus noster, cuius praecepta metuere 
et servare debemus, episcopi honorem et ecclesiae suae rationem disponens 
in euangelio loquitur et dicit Petro. . . .” Cyprian dwells much on this 
point, perhaps because he means to refute Tertullian’s theory regarding 
the merely ecclesiastical origin of the hierarchy (“ Exhort. castit.” 7). 

2 The author of the “ De Aleatoribus” will later on take up the same 
argument. These are the words in which he, a bishop, speaks of his dig- 
nity : “Quoniam in nobis divina et paterna pietas apostolatus ducatum 
contulit, et vicariam Domini sedem caelesti dignatione ordinavit, et 
originem authentici apostolatus super quem Christus fundavit ecclesiam 
in superiore nostro portamus, accepta simul potestate solvendi ac ligandi 
et curatione peccata dimittendi . . . “De Aleat.” 1 (Harret, vol. 111. 
p- 93). To us bishops God has entrusted the “leadership of the aposto- 
late”; we hold the “vicarious seat of the Lord,” i.e. we sit in the Church 
in the Lord’s stead ; ‘‘we bear in our ancestor,” the Apostle Peter, the 
origin of the authentic apostolate ; on this apostolate Christ has built His 
Church ; together with Peter we have received the power to bind and to 
loose, the charge to remit sins. . . . Taken by itself, this text might seem 
to apply only to a Bishop of Rome. But it must be taken together with 
other passages of the same treatise, in which the author shows that he is 
an ordinary bishop, and then with some texts of Cyprian on the same sub- 
ject. For Cyprian, Peter was the founder of the Roman Church, but 
Peter was first of the Apostles, in whose person Christ had formally 
founded that Church from which all other churches are genealogically 
derived. The unknown African bishop to whom we owe the “De 
Aleatoribus” was an imitator of Cyprian’s style, and took from him this 
interpretation of the words of Christ to St. Peter. Moncravux, vol. 1. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 363 


The interpretation which St. Cyprian applies to the text 
Tu es Petrus is based on the principle that what prevails in 
the Church of to-day has its reason and its law in what 
Christ laid down. We may compare the application of this 
principle Cyprian is about to make here with the application 
he makes of it elsewhere to the Eucharist: let us come 
back, he says in this latter case, “‘ to the root and origin of 
the tradition of the Lord,’ and what Christ did, let us do 
with fidelity. When Christ built His Church, He estab- 
lished it on one man, on Peter, “‘swper wnum aedificat ec- 
clesiam”: hence a pari every church is built upon one only. 

We need not observe that St. Cyprian misunderstands 
the bearing of the text, Tu es Petrus: he deprives the words 
of Jesus of nearly all their real and historical meaning.’ 
The Saviour is made to institute, not a primacy special to 
Peter over the whole Church, but the episcopal monarchy in 
each Church. 

Are we to attribute this unnatural interpretation to an 
error of Cyprian regarding the nature of the Church? If all 
the Apostles received the same powers as Peter, if all the 
Apostles are equal, and Peter is without privilege, all the 
bishops are equal, and the see of Peter is without privilege. 
Has not the Bishop of Rome “‘ the right to preside in a more 
effective manner over the Catholic unity,” of which Peter 
was the starting-point, “‘to maintain it and to secure it by 
means of a sovereign intervention in the questions of faith 


p. 115: “If we read at the beginning of the ‘ De Aleat.’ that its author 
is the vicar of the Lord, that he is the heir of the authentic apostolate on 
which Christ has built the Church, that he has the power to bind and to 
loose, and the mission to forgive sins, this means merely that he is a 
bishop. Cyprian and his African colleagues did not speak otherwise 
of their own functions.” This is in reply to Harnack, who ascribes the 
‘‘De Aleat.” to Pope Victor, see BarpENHEWER, ‘‘ Geschichte,” vol. τι. 
p. 447. 

1 ἐς Epistulae,” tx. 1: “. . . ad radicem atque originem traditionis 
dominicae revertatur. . . . Quando aliquid Deo inspirante et mandante 
praecipitur, necesse est domino servus fidelis obtemperet.” Cf. ‘* Epis- 
tulae,” Lxxm. 2: “Nos autem qui ecclesiae unius caput et radicem tene- 
mus....” Ibid. 7: “Petro primum Dominus, super quem aedificavit 
ecclesiam et unde unitatis originem instituit et ostendit. . . .” 

2 J. DetarocHetxe [?], “ L’idée de l’Eglise dans saint Cyprien,” 
** Revue hist. et de litt. relig.”’ vol. τ. (1896), p. 528. 


364 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


and discipline that may arise?” No, ‘‘no more than any 
other bishop, at least if we keep to the absolute and theor- 
etical point of view taken by Cyprian. . . . There is a uni- 
versal episcopate, which comprises all the bishops; there is 
no universal bishop. Each bishop is really a centre of the 
Church, and the intercommunion of all the bishops makes 
the unity of the whole. . . . Of the bishops, the Bishop of 
Rome is the one who holds in his hands, so to speak, the 
threads of the universal communion; but he has nothing to 
do save to hold them ; it is beyond his province to determine 
by himself the conditions of a communion of which he 15 not 
the head but the official representative. Christian unity 
has for its intimate cause the Holy Ghost, and for its ex- 
ternal guarantee the obligation, binding upon all, not to 
abandon, not to divide, not to trouble the Church of 
Christ ”’.1 

It may be said with more fairness that the treatise ‘“‘ De 
Unitate ecclesiae’’—a controversial work written for a 
special occasion—does not set forth a system of the uni- 
versal Church, in other words, of Catholicism: it is con- 
cerned exclusively with this thesis that in every Church 
there is room for but one bishop. The title of the treatise 
by no means comprises all that the identical title of Bossuet’s 
sermon comprises. If it is true, as St. Fulgentius testifies, 
that Cyprian’s treatise was sometimes entitled ‘‘ De Simplicit- 
ate praelatorum,”? this latter title, which is less authentic 
and less extensive, expressed much better the special point 
of view to which Cyprian confined himself. 

When we view his treatise in this perspective we under- 
stand why he devotes his attention exclusively to the one- 
ness of the cathedra in each church, and insists on it to 
such an extent as to seem to forget that the bishop, in each 
particular Church, is dependent on Catholicism as a whole: 
Cyprian and all the Christians were so clearly reminded of 
this by the traditional facts, by the institutions contemporary 


1J. DetsaRocHELLE, p. 531. Harnack takes the same view in 
**Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 418; Monceraux, vol. 11. p. 338; Ligurroot, 
‘*‘ Christian Ministry,” p. 95; Turmen, “‘ Hist. du dogme de la papauté, 
vol. 1. pp. 113 and 134. 

? Harte, vol. 1. p. 209. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 365 


with Cyprian himself, by the ecclesiastical customs, that he 
could afford to pass it over without mention. What would 
the councils, then in universal usage, have meant, if the 
bishop was amenable to God alone? Even supposing that 
Cyprian had purposely set aside the traditional Roman fact, 
can we say that he abstained with like deliberation from 
speaking of councils? No: Cyprian simply makes a strained 
application of the text Tw es Petrus to the one point he has 
in mind; and this is not the only case in which he sinned 
by one-sidedness. 

As a demonstration of the necessity of unity in each 
church Cyprian’s treatise was a success: he gained his 
point against Novatian, and gained it forall time. What a 
usurping bishop, and what an antipope, were in the eyes of 
faith, he showed in terms so striking that the principle of 
unity can nevermore be called in question ; but the principle 
of unity applies to the universal Church just as well as to 
particular churches. As Bossuet has expressed it in a striking 
epigram, ‘‘ unity is the guardian of unity”’; the unity of the 
chair of Peter safeguards both in doctrine and in discipline 
the unity of the whole episcopate. In the ‘“‘ De Unitate Kc- 
clesiae ᾿᾿ Cyprian did not reflect on this higher unity; and 
because he confined his attention to each bishop in each 
Church, he was led to lose sight of the guidance of the Holy 
Ghost promised to all. Catholic unity thus took on the ap- 
pearance of a political confederacy, dependent on the ever 
unstable good will and the ever fallible freedom of individuals.! 


1“ These statements (of Cyprian), which savour of episcopalianism, 
are surprising, as coming from a man so much in love with unity, who so 
well realized the conditions of good government. They may be ex- 
plained, not only by the heat of polemics, but also by the influence of 
Tertullian, whom St. Cyprian had much studied, and by the fact that he 
paid far more attention to the unity of each particular church, of which 
the bishop is the centre, than to the unity of the universal Church.” 
TrxeRont, ‘‘ Hist. des dogmes,” vol. 1. p. 387. We find the same judg- 
ment in D’Atés, ““ Question baptismale,” pp. 40-41: ‘* Cyprian held by 
every fibre of his soul to the unity of the Church. .. . But of this [uni- 
versal] unity, and of the prerogatives of St. Peter’s successor, he had 
a rather unsettled idea. He conceives the episcopal power as an un- 
divided mass in which every bishop shares according to his needs. . . . 
After showing that the Church is one flock, which is fed jointly by all the 
pastors, he does not think of defining the conditions of this unity, and he 


966 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


So true is it that all the elements of the constitution of 
Catholicism hold together ! 


Excursus KE. 


The Two Editions of the “De Unitate ecclesiae”. 


The ‘‘ De Unitate ecclesiae”’ gives rise to a last problem— 
the problem of the well-known interpolation, which has been 
so long denounced as a hateful papistical forgery, and quite 
recently ‘‘as a Papal aggression upon history and litera- 
ture τὶ 

This interpolation did not appear in the text of the 
princeps edition (Rome, 1471), nor in that of the subsequent 
editions. It appeared for the first time in the edition of 
Paul Manutius (Rome, 1563). It remained in the subse- 
quent editions of James de Paméle (Antwerp, 1568), of 
Rigault (1648), and of Dom Maran (Paris, 1726). On the 
other hand, the Anglican edition (Oxford, 1682) eliminated it 
with joy. A critical text was at last furnished by the edition 
of G. de Hartel (Vienna, 1868). But at the same time it 
was discovered that unfortunately the falsification perpetrated 
by the Papists did not originate with the printed edition 
but could be traced far back in the history of the MSS. 

First, a family of MSS8.—which we will designate by the 


relies, for its actual realization, on the spontaneous agreement of all 
the individual wills in view of the common task, rather than on the central 
action of a strong government.”’ 

1 BENSON, p. 219. The dispute has been wonderfully cleared up by 
Dom CuHarman, ‘“‘ Les interpolations dans le traité de 3. Cyprien sur 
Vunite de 1|’Kglise,” ‘‘ Revue Bénédictine,” v. xix. (1902), and v. xx. 
(1903). According to Harnack, Dom Chapman has proved indisputably 
that the interpolation contains nothing that is not Cyprianic, that it is 
specifically Cyprianic, that it is directed against Novatian, that it cannot 
be ascribed to an intellectual circle other than that of Cyprian. ‘‘ Theo- 
logische Literaturzeitung,” 1903, pp. 262-3. 6. Kriiger (‘‘Theolog. 
Literaturzeitung,” 1909, p. 413) writes : ‘‘ Richtig ist, dass von Falschung 
nicht mehr reden darf”. The objections raised by M. Turmet, “‘ Hist. 
du dogme de la papauté,” vol. 1. p. 109, proceed from an insufficient 
study of the question. For a continuation of the discussion see H. Kocu, 
‘Cyprian und der Rémische Primat” (Leipzig, 1910), pp. 158-69, and 
Dom Chapman’s criticism of Koch (Professor Hugo Koch on 8S. Cyprian) 
in ‘‘ Revue Bénédictine,” Oct. 1910, pp. 447-64. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 367 


letter C—had combined the genuine text and the interpola- 
tion: the archetypal MS. of that family is a MS. of the 
tenth century.! A second group (B) of MSS. did not con- 
tain the interpolation, and this is the text adopted by Hartel 
as the genuine text: the MSS. on which it is based date 
back with the ‘‘Seguierianus”’ to the sixth or seventh cen- 
tury.2. A third group of MSS. (A) places the interpolation 
and the genuine text one after the other: the MSS. of this 
group are primarily represented by a Munich MS. of the 
ninth century, and a Troyes MS. of the eighth or ninth 
century.® 

The following is the text C': we italicize the words taken 
from the text A :-— 

“Et eidem post resurrectionem suam dicit: Pasce oves 
meas. Super illum unum aedificat ecclesiam swam, et illi 
pascendas mandat oves suas. Ht quamvis apostolis omnibus 
post resurrectionem suam parem potestatem tribuat et dicat: 
Sicut misit me Pater, et ego mitto vos, accipite Spiritum 
sanctum: si cui remiseritis peccata remittentur illi: si cui 
tenueritis tenebuntur, tamen ut unitatem manifestaret 
unam cathedram constiturt, et unitatis eiusdem originem 
ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit. Hoc erant 
utique et ceteri apostoli quod fuit et Petrus, pari consortio 
praediti et honoris et potestatis, sed exordium ab unitate 
proficiscitur, et primatus Petro datur, ut wna ecclesia Christi 
et cathedra una monstretur. Et pastores sunt omnes, et 
grex unus ostenditur, qui et apostolis omnibus unanimi 
consensione pascatur ; ut Ecclesia Christi una monstretur, 
quam unam Kcclesiam etiam in cantico canticorum Spiritus 
sanctus ex persona domini designat et dicit; una est columba 
mea, perfecta mea, una est matri suae, electa genitrici suae. 
Hanc LHcclesiae unitatem qui non tenet, tenere se fidem 
credit? Qui Ecclesiae renititur et resistit, gui cathedram 
Petri super quam fundata est ecclesia deserit, in ecclesia se 
esse confidit ?” 


1The MS. Vossius is the MS. Lat. (in 8vo) 7 of the Leyden Univer- 
sity Library. 

“The MS. Séguier is the MS. Lat. 10592 of the Paris National 
Library. 

* Munich 208 and Troyes 581. 


368 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


This is the text printed by Paul Manutius at Rome. 
The words in italics, writes Benson, are ‘‘from the pen of 
one who held the cardinal doctrine of the Roman See,” and 
the introduction of those words into the text has altogether 
misrepresented the thought of Cyprian. However, let us 


continue our inquiry. 
We now give in a parallel the text B and the text A:— 


A B 


Et eidem post resurrectionem 
dicit : Pasce oves meas. 
Super illum aedificat ecclesiam et Super unum aedificat ecclesiam. 
illi pascendas oves mandat. 
Et quamvis apostolis omnibus parem Et quamvis apostolis omnibus post 
tribuat potestatem resurrectionem suam  parem 
potestatem tribuat et dicat: 
Sicut misit me Pater, et ego mitto 
vos. <Accipite Spiritum sanctum : 
si cuius remiseritis peccata, re- 
mittentur 1111: si cuius tenueritis 
tenebuntur, tamen ut unitatem 
manifestaret 
unam tamen cathedram constituit, 


et unitatis originem atque rationem unitatis eiusdem originem ab uno 


sua auctoritate disposuit. incipientem sua auctoritate . dis- 
posuit. 

Hoc erant utique et ceteri quod fuit Hoc erant utique et ceteri apostoli 

Petrus, quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio 


praediti et honoris et potestatis, 
sed exordium ab unitate proficis- 
citur 
sed primatus Petro datur 
et una ecclesia et cathedra una αὖ ecclesia Christi una monstretur. 
monstratur. 
Et pastores sunt omnes, sed grex 
unus ostenditur, qui ab apostolis 
omnibus unanimi consensione 
pascatur 
Quam unam ecclesiam etiam in can- 
tico canticorum Spiritus sanctus 
ex persona Domini designat et 
dicit : Una est columba mea, per- 
fecta mea, una est matri suae, 
electa genitrici suae. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 369 


A. B. 
Hane et Pauli unitatem! qui non Hane ecclesiae unitatem qui non 
tenet, tenere se fidem credit ? tenet, tenere se fidem credit ? 


Qui cathedram Petri super quem Qui ecclesiae renititur et resistit, 
fundata ecclesia est deserit, 


in ecclesia se esse confidit ? in ecclesia se esse confidit ? 
Super unum aedificat, ete. Quando et beatus apostolus Paulus 
hoe, ete. 


If we compare these three texts, we soon become certain 
that the text C is a skilful combination of A and B. Except 
the phrase Quam unam . . . genitrici suae, there is nothing 
in C that is not m A and B. The text Cis, so to speak, a 
harmonizing text. 

The text A is what English critics call a conflation. 
Given two readings for one and the same text, the copyist 
may choose the one or the other; or he may transcribe them 
both one after the other. In the present case, the copyist 
of the archetypal MS. had before his eyes two parallel re- 
dactions of the same passage, and, in order not to have to 
make a choice, he merely copied them one after the other. 

From this first critical examination we may infer that 
what was deemed an ‘‘ interpolation,” i.e. an addition intro- 
duced violently into the authentic text, is not an interpola- 
tion, but a variant. Now this variant goes far back into 
ecclesiastical antiquity. The twofold redaction preserved in 
the text A is given by MSS. (that of Munich and of Troyes) 
of which the common archetype may date from the sixth or 
the seventh century. Indeed we have guiding-marks that 
are still more precise: the text Cis quoted by Pope Pelagius 
II towards the end of the sixth century, and the text A by 
Bede in the eighth century.’ 

Scholars are indebted to Dom Chapman for having 
thrown light on the character of this fact, which in itself 
had doubtless been previously observed: the text of A con- 


‘The words ‘‘et Pauli” yield no sense, not even if we try to find in 
them an allusion to some text of S. Paul (as Eph. v. 3-5) for wnitas Pauli 


cannot signify “‘ the unity which Paul preaches”. “Μὲ Pauli” must 
then be a corruption, doubtless of ecclesiae. Cyprian had just said ‘‘ wna 
ecclesia et cathedra una”. He now resumes ‘. . . eccleside unitatem 
qui. . . qui cathedram Petri... .” 


2 CHAPMAN, vol. xIx. pp. 249 and 361. 


24 


370 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


tains not a single word or expression that does not belong 
to Cyprian’s ordinary language and usage, and is not found 
elsewhere in his writings:! so that we must conclude that 
the forger either has contrived to make himself a perfect 
facsimile of Cyprian, or else is no other than Cyprian himself. 
This latter hypothesis is the more plausible because the au- 
thor of the text A uses Cyprian’s vocabulary with a freedom 
that cannot be that of a skilful and learned imitator, doing a 
kind of marquetry work.2, Dom Chapman can, then, con- 
clude that most probably the text A represents an edition of 
the ‘‘ De Unitate”’ different from the edition represented by 
the text B, both being the work of St. Cyprian. 

We have not far to seek, continues Dom Chapman, for 
occasions that might have evoked each of these different edi- 
tions. One or two months after the Council of Carthage in 
May, 251, Cyprian is told of the return of the Roman con- 
fessors to the communion of Cornelius: he had sent them 
his forty-sixth epistle to exhort them to return to the true 
fold, and now he sends them his fifty-fourth epistle, together 
with his two books ‘‘De Lapsis” and ‘De Unitate”. The 
“106 Lapsis”’ might enlighten them about the lawfulness of 
the leniency condemned by Novatian, and the “‘ De Unitate,”’ 
which, according to Dom Chapman, was “written against 
Felicissimus, might be used against any schism whatever.” 
But Cyprian felt the need of revising the central part of his 
fourth chapter, to adapt to Rome what had applied to Car- 
thage. How much more forcibly “could he not appeal 
to their love of unity, if he showed them that it was not 
from an ordinary bishop that they were separating them- 
selves, but from the see of St. Peter itself ’’.® 

We fully accept, with Harnack, Dom Chapman’s attribu- 
tion of both text A and text B to St. Cyprian; we cannot 
however agree with him on this point of secondary import- 
ance, the date of text A. It cannot be that Cyprian sends 
to the Roman confessors the ‘‘De Lapsis” and the ‘De 
Unitate,” at the same time as his fifty-fourth epistle, since 
he says in this very epistle that he had sent them these two 
little books before their submission to Cornelius. Referring 


1 CHAPMAN, vol. XIX. pp. 364-73. 
2 Ibid. vol. xx. p. 48. 5 Ibid. p. 49. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 371 


in this epistle especially to the ““De Unitate,” he says to 
the confessors who have made their peace with the Pope 
“{Hunc] libellum magis ac magis nune vobis placere con- 
jido: I am sure that this book will be more acceptable to 
you now . . . inasmuch as what we have written to you in 
words, you fulfil in act, by returning to the Church in the 
unity of charity and peace”.! Since the “‘De Unitate ” is 
now more acceptable to them, we must suppose that they 
had received it at a time when it was less acceptable—in 
other words, at the time they were still outside unity 
and in rebellion against Cornelius. In fact, in his fifty-fourth 
epistle, Cyprian does not say to the Roman confessors “I 
send you”’ but I had sent you: “ Lectis quos hic [at Carth- 
age] nuper [in the Council of May] legeram et ad vos quo- 
que legendos pro communi dilectione transmiseram”. The 
two words legeram and transmiseram suggest the simultane- 
ousness of the two actions and lead us to think that Cyprian 
had sent the ‘‘De Unitate” to the Roman confessors im- 
mediately after he had read it in the Council of Carthage.” 

The “De Unitate,” then—we may conclude—is syn- 
chronous with the Carthaginian Council of May 251, and is 
directed not against schism in general, but against Novatian’s 
schism at Rome. We may add, with Dom Chapman, that 
text A is not any kind of text, but a text that has in view 
more directly than text B the faction of the Roman schis- 
matics.* 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,” Liv. 4. 

*Nor do I think that Dom Chapman has proved that the “De 
Unitate ” is directed against Felicissimus. The minute comparison which 
Dom Chapman—vol. xx. pp. 30-3—makes between the “De Unitate ” 
and the ““ Epistula,” xim., seems to me to prove, on the contrary, that 
in the arguments common to both writings Novatian is substituted for 
Felicissimus. Thus (‘ Epistulae,” xxi. 5), the phrase ‘* Pacem nune 
offerunt qui ipsi non habent pacem,” which is most appropriate when 
applied to the Carthaginian lapsi, is not to be found in the “De Uni- 
tate” (11), because it does not apply to Novatian’s party. But we read 
some pages after (ibid. 13): ‘Quam sibi igitur pacem promittunt inimici 
fratrum? Quae sacrificia celebrare se credunt aemuli sacerdotum ?” 
These words have a quite different meaning: the “ peace ” is the liturgical 
peace, the “‘sacrifices ” are the schismatic worship, and by ““ aemuli sacer- 
dotum” illegitimate bishops are designated. 

* CHAPMAN, vol. xx. pp. 40-5. 


24 * 


372 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Text B lays special stress on the powers imparted by the 
Saviour to all the Apostles: “‘. . . et dicat: Sicut misit me 
Pater, et ego mitto vos: Accipite Sprritum sanctum, si 
cuwus. ... It does not say merely: ‘‘ Hoc erani utique 
cetert apostoli quod fuit Petrus”’: it dwells upon and enlarges 
the affirmation: “‘ Hoe erant utique et ceteri apostolt quod 
furt Petrus, part consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis.” 
Text B seems to insist on the equality between Peter and the 
other Apostles: to all the same honour, the same power. On 
the contrary, in text A, the powers of the other Apostles are 
not insisted on, but the authority of Peter is emphasized. To 
Peter and to Peter alone, it was said: ‘‘ Pasce oves meas’’. 
On Peter, Christ builds the Church. To Peter He entrusts 
the feeding of His sheep. In the person of Peter, ‘‘unam 
cathedram constituit”. And the first rank is given to 
Peter, “primatus Petro datur”. Hence it is manifest that 
the Church is one, and that there is only one cathedra. 
This unity is more conspicuous at Rome, where the episcopal 
cathedra is that of Peter and where Paul came in person. 
Can the Roman who does not hold this unity “ think that 
he holds the rule of faith’? ‘“‘ Hance... wnitatem 
qui non tenet, tenere se fidem credit?” Can the Roman 
who deserts that cathedra which is peculiarly that of 
Peter—that on which the Saviour founded the Church 
when He said Ju es Petrus—believe that he is in the 
Church? In other words, to abandon the cathedra of the 
bishop is everywhere an impiety but at Rome more so than 
anywhere else. 

The conclusion we draw from these facts is the same as 
Dom Chapman’s: text A is Cyprian’s (as well as text B) 
and it has in view the party of Novatian at Rome. 

But whereas Dom Chapman, thinking that the “De 
Unitate”’ was written against the faction of Felicissimus, 
has concluded that text B represented the original and 
the first edition, I believe on the contrary we may safely 
affirm, that the ‘“‘De Unitate’’ having been originally 
written against the faction of Novatian the text A re- 
presents the original and the first edition. B—the so-called 
pure text—is a text corrected by St. Cyprian: these cor- 
rections are the result of a revision made by Cyprian in 


a » Ἢ 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 373 


order perhaps to remove from his argument what was too 
special to Novatian’s case, and thus render its bearing more 
universal. 


ITf. 


We have seen how entirely Cyprian and Pope Cornelius 
agreed, and how, through his work “‘ De Unitate ecclesiae,”’ 
the Bishop of Carthage intended to come to the aid of the 
Church of Rome. At this particular moment—just a few 
days after the Council of Carthage in May, 251—there arose 
a cloud between the two bishops. 

Felicissimus, going to Rome, had lodged with Pope 
Cornelius a complaint against the legitimacy of Cyprian’s 
episcopacy, and Cornelius had thought it his duty to take 
the matter into consideration. This we know from the 
letter, full of dignity, which Cyprian writes to Cornelius to 
upbraid him for letting himself be intimidated by factious 
spirits. Cyprian in no way blames the Bishop of Rome for 
interfering in a matter that pertains to the inner life of the 
Carthaginian Church: the principle of the solidarity of the 
Churches—a principle so distinctly and authoritatively af- 
firmed and put into practice by Cyprian—authorized in 
his eyes the solicitude of Cornelius. But he complains that 
the solicitude of the Bishop of Rome has been aroused by 
dishonest intriguers whose complaints deserved no attention. 
It was true that the party of Felicissimus had set up at 
Carthage a pseudo-bishop, Fortunatus (one of the Cartha- 
ginian priests who, as we have seen, had been an agitator 
from the beginning), but this Carthaginian schism was not of 
such importance that the Roman authorities should mind it: 
“Non ea res erat quae in notitiam tuam deberet Sestinato 
statvm quasi magna aut metuenda perferrt”, Cyprian says 
to the Pope: “.. . nec de hoc tibi serupseram, quando haec 
omnia contemnantur a nobis” 2 

If we read attentively Cyprian’s able letter, we per- 
ceive that the solicitude of Cornelius for the church of 


1 “ Epistulae,” Lrx. 9. 


374 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Carthage somewhat troubles him. What has been the 
object of those adventurers? They cross the sea, they ap- 
peal to the chair of Peter, to that ‘ ecclesia principalis”’ 
whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise, and yet 
they know well that the mind of all the African bishops is 
that causes be tried and judged on the spot, that bishops 
administer and rule the particular flock assigned to them, 
and give to God an account of their stewardship. 

‘‘ Navigare audent et ad Petri cathedram atque ad ecclesiam 
principalem! unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est? ab schis- 
maticis et profanis litteras ferre? . . . Nam cum statutum 
sit ab omnibus nobis, et aequum sit pariter ac iustum, ut 
uniuscuiusque causa illic audiatur ubi est crimen admissum, 
et singulis pastoribus portio gregis sit adscripta quam regat 
unusquisque et gubernet, rationem sui actus Domino reddit- 
urus, oportet utique eos . . . agere illic causam suam ubi 
et accusatores habere et testes sui criminis possint, nisi si 
paucis desperatis et perditis minor videtur esse auctoritas 
episcoporum in Africa constitutorum, qui de illis iam iudica- 


verunt. . . . [am causa eorum cognita est, iam de eis dicta 
sententia est, nec censurae congruit sacerdotum mobilis 
atque inconstantis animi levitate reprehendi. .. .”’* 


The case of Felicissimus has been tried and judged at 
Carthage by the bishops of Africa: if the appeal of a few 
condemned ecclesiastics can hold in check such a weighty 


1 These two famous words “ecclesia principalis” refer to the Roman 
Church, in which Cyprian recognizes the ‘‘ Cathedra Petri”. We 
believe the meaning of the word ‘‘principalis” to be the one given 
already by Irenzeus to principalitas, and by Tertullian to auctoritas 
(‘‘ Praeser.” 36). 

“Some have seen in these words an indication that the churches of 
Africa had been founded by the Roman Church. In reality, nothing at 
all is known of the origin of the Church of Carthage and of the African 
Churches. Ducuesne, “Hist. anc.” vol. 1. p. 392. We believe that 
Cyprian is here recalling an idea on which he is insistent elsewhere, 
viz. that the Church built by Jesus on Peter is the Church to which all 
the other Churches stand in a filial relationship. 

3 ἐς Kpistulae,” tix. 14. The words ‘‘ minor videtur esse auctoritas 
episcoporum in Africa constitutorum’’ imply that Felicissimus regards 
the authority of Rome as greater than the authority of the African coun- 
cil, in the sense that an appeal may be made to Rome from a sentence of 
the African council. 


a 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 375 


sentence, it is all over with the authority of the episcopate : 
“ Actum est de episcopatus rigore et de ecclesiae gubernandae 
sublimi ac divine potestate”.! 

In his emotion over a case in which his own action was 
called in question Cyprian fails to estimate aright the com- 
petency of Rome. 

* τὰς 


ὡ- 


‘““The Council of Africa,’ Mgr. Duchesne writes, “ had 
become a regular institution. The letters of St. Cyprian 
show that, except in times of persecution, it met at least 
once a year, in spring and sometimes also in autumn. 
These great periodical assemblies did much to maintain a 
uniform discipline. Their fame spread beyond Africa, and 
the reputation of the wise and illustrious man who was their 
very life and soul, added to their renown.” During the 
autumn of the year 254, the request of two Spanish bishops 
—the Bishop of Merida (Hmerita), and that of Leon and 
Astorga (Legio, Asturica), was laid before the Council. 
These bishops—Sabinus and Felix—had succeeded respec- 
tively Basilides and Martialis, who had been deposed. But 
Basilides had gone to Rome, and obtained from Pope 
Stephen, for himself and probably for Martialis also, a sen- 
tence of restoration. The Council of Africa, before which 
the affair was brought, gave it an opposite solution: the 
African bishops confirmed the deposition of Basilides and 
Martialis, and the election of Sabinus and Felix. ‘It is 
hardly possible to decide which was in the right,” says Mer. 
Duchesne. We have no Roman document bearing on the 
question, but only the synodal letter of the thirty-seven 
African bishops announcing their judgment to the faithful 
of the two Spanish Churches. 

But, was this a judgment, properly speaking? In the 
case of Felicissimus, had not Cyprian represented to Pope 
Cornelius that such cases must be tried on the spot, that the 
witnesses may be heard? The two Spanish Churches have 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,’”’ Lx. 2. 

ἡ“. Hist. ane.” vol. τ. p. 419. With Benson, Harnack and Duchesne 
we suppose that the Spanish affair was previous to the baptismal contro- 
versy. But it is not unlikely that even at this date (autumn of the 
year 254) there was a rupture between Stephen and Cyprian. 


376 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


written to Carthage in behalf of Felix and of Sabinus; these 
two bishops have joined their testimony to that of their two 
Churches ; the Bishop of Saragossa, “‘ fideo cultor ac defensor 
veritatis,’ has written in the same sense! The council of 
Carthage is asked, not exactly to judge, but rather to take 
cognizance of the sentence passed already in Spain, and to 
recognize the two bishops who, in Spain, are held to be 
legitimate. 

The exceptional interest of the case lies in the fact that, 
Rome having pronounced in the contrary sense, we may 
suppose that the two Spanish Churches appealed in good 
faith to the Catholic world, beginning with Carthage and the 
Council of Africa. 

At Carthage, this appeal was taken up with equal good 
faith. Cyprian sided with Felix and Sabinus, because he 
deemed it well-established that Basilides and Martialis had 
been convicted of gravia delicta, and that, consequently, 
they could indeed be admitted to penance, but not maintained 
or re-established in the priestly order, according to the 
previous decisions of the whole episcopate and of Pope Cor- 
nelius: “. . . cum iam pridem nobiscum, et cum omni- 
bus omnino episcopis in toto mundo constitutis, etiam 
Cornelius collega noster, sacerdos pacificus ac iustus et 
martyrio quoque dignatione Domini honoratus decreverit”’? 
What has been decreed by the whole episcopate must be 
observed. But, we may say, it is hardly probable that Rome 
should think of setting aside such a wise and recent 
law: Rome then may have had good reasons for thinking 
that Basilides and Martialis were not guilty of the crimes 
with which they were charged. Cyprian knew from his own 
experience that local intrigues and factions do not spare even 
the members of the episcopate. But no, Basilides had 
gone to Rome to plead his innocence, and had deceived Pope 
Stephen: ‘‘ Romam pergens,” writes Cyprian, ‘‘ Stephanwm 
collegam nostrum longe positum et gestae ret ac veritatis 
ignarum fefellit”’® 

Rome was too far off, says Cyprian: but was the whole 
episcopate much nearer? we ask. 


1¢Epistulae,”uxvm. 6. —»-® Ibid. 8 Ibid. δ. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 377 


To this Cyprian replies that he must abide by the judg- 
ment of the two Spanish Churches. The plebs, he writes, 
that plebs which fears God and obeys the Lord’s commands, 
must break with its bishop, if he is a sinner, since, after 
all, it has the right to choose worthy bishops and to refuse 
those who are unworthy: “Plebs ...a@ peccatore prae- 
posito separare se debet, nec se ad sacrilegi sacerdotis sacri- 
ficia miscere, quando isa maxime habeat potestatem vel 
eligendi dignos sacerdotes, vel indignos recusandi”’.. But, 
if an appeal to Rome imperils authority, is there not also 
a danger in granting to the plebs in every Church this right 
of deposing unworthy bishops ? 

There is something still more serious. We begin to 
discern in St. Cyprian’s doctrine a tendency similar to that 
which we have noticed in Origen: upright and spotless 
candidates alone must be raised to the episcopate, because 
it must be certain that, when they pray for the people, they 
are heard of God.? The sacrifice offered by a bishop who 
is a sinner pollutes the people who partake of that sacrifice.’ 
In a case which he deemed similar, that of Fortunatianus, 
Bishop of Assuras (in Africa), who had been deposed as a 
lapsus and yet persisted in exercising his priestly functions, 
Cyprian had declared that his followers must part company 
with him: “‘ quando nec oblatio sanctificari lie possit ubr 
sanctus Spiritus non sit, nec cuiquam Dominus per eius 
orationes et preces prosit qui Dominum ipse violavit’’4 
Cyprian confounds the lawful exercise of Orders with the 
power of Orders: a bishop, however great a sinner he may 
be, does not forfeit the power to consecrate the Eucharist 
and to offer up the sacrifice validly: the Church can take 
from him only the right to exercise this power; and 


1 ἐς Epistulae,” LXvi. 3. 

2 Ibid. 2: ‘* In ordinationibus sacerdotum non nisi immaculatos et 
integros antistites eligere debemus, qui sancte et digne sacrificia Deo 
offerentes audiri in precibus possint quas faciunt pro plebis dominicae 
incolumitate. . . . Kos oportet ad sacerdotium Dei deligi quos a Deo 
constet audiri.” 

° Ibid. 3. Cyprian (‘‘ Epistulae,’”’ rx. 5) applies to the heretical 
bishops the text of Osee : ‘‘ Sacrificia eorwm tamquam panis luctus, omnes 
qui manducant ea contaminabuntur ”’. 

4 Tbid, uxv. 4. 


918 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


such is the doctrine held and professed at Rome, as we 
learn from a decision of Pope Callistus.! Cyprian, on the 
contrary, speaks in such a way that it may be inferred 
from his language that a bishop who has forfeited the Holy 
Ghost through his unworthiness, loses also, as a consequence, 


the power of Orders.” 


Te τ 
*% 


Soon after the affair of the two Spanish bishops, Cyprian 
received one after the other two letters from the Bishop of 
Lyons, Faustinus,’? about the refusal of the Bishop of Arles, 
Marcianus, to follow the practice sanctioned by the whole 
episcopate in the year 251, regarding the reconciliation of the 
lapst: Marcianus clung to the rigorism of Novatian. The 
Bishop of Lyons, together with ‘‘ caeteris coepiscopis nostris 
in eadem provincia constitutis,”’ had denounced Marcianus 
to Rome at the same time as to Carthage, as a bishop who 
departed ‘a catholicae ecclesiae veritate’”’ and ‘a corporis 
nostra et sacerdote. consensione,”’ and embraced “ hereticae 
praesumptionis durissimam pravitatem”’ 4 

Cyprian must have been somewhat disconcerted on hear- 
ing of the conduct of the Bishop of Arles, for it was in fla- 
srant contradiction with his theory that the whole episco- 
pate was bound together by a cordial understanding. That 
pseudo-bishops should be set up at Carthage or at Rome, did 
not greatly affect his theory of the Church; but that a legiti- 
mate bishop, like Marcianus, and he the bishop of a great see 
like Arles, should attempt to disregard a disciplinary measure 
which had been adopted hardly four years before by the whole 
episcopate, that he should dare thus to insult the episcopal 
college, was a clear indication that the unity of unities, as 
described by Cyprian, was more precarious than he had 
thought. 

Had he been faithful to the doctrine of his letter to the 
Spaniards, Cyprian ought to have written to the plebs of 


1 <¢Philosophoumena,” Ix. 12. 

? On the way in which, because of his speaking thus, the Donatists 
used to quote Cyprian in their favour, see Moncnavx, vol. τι. p. 465. 

9. ἐς Kpistulae,” txvim. 1. This incident occurred probably at the 
beginning of the year 255. ς 

4 Ibid. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 379 


Arles, and invited them to break with such an heretical 
bishop as Marcianus. He did nothing of the kind. Or, 
again, as, according to his theory, a provincial council judges 
supremely the causes arising in its province, he ought to 
have written to the Bishop of Lyons and to his coepiscopt, 
and exhorted them to excommunicate Marcianus and choose 
a successor in his stead. This likewise he failed to do. The 
step he decided to take was the one we should least ex- 
pect of him, seeing the principles he had previously laid 
down: he wrote to Pope Stephen and asked him to inter- 
vene with the bishops of Gaul. ‘‘ Facere te oportet plenis- 
simas litteras! ad coepiscopos nostros in Gallia constitutos, 
ne ultra Marcianum pervicacem et superbum et divinae 
pietatis ac fraternae salutis inimicum,? collegio nostro insul- 
tare patiantur. . . . Quam vanum est, frater carissime, ut 
Novatiano nuper retuso et refutato et per totum orbem a 
sacerdotibus Dei abstento, nunc adulatores adhuc nobis 
patiamur inludere, et de maiestate ac dignitate Ecclesiae 
iudicare.”’ 3 

‘“‘ Dirigantur in provinciam et ad plebem Arelate consis- 
tentem a te litterae quibus abstento Marciano alius in loco 
elus substituatur.” 4 


1 By “ plenissimas litteras ” we must understand a reasoned and fore- 
ible letter. It is a literary expression. 

2 ** Salutis nimicum ” refers to the rigorism of Marcianus who refuses 
to reconcile the lapsit. Cyprian (ibid. 2) speaks of Christians whom 
Marcianus annis istis superioribus, had refused to reconcile to the Church 
before their death. Hence Marcianus was Bishop of Arles at least as early 
as the year 250. This inference tells against the statement of Gregory of 
Tours, according to whom St. Trophimus came from Rome to Arles, pre- 
cisely in the year 250. 

5 Ibid. 2. 

* Ibid. 3. According to Benson, Cyprian begs Stephen to write two 
letters : one to the bishops of Gaul, telling them to excommunicate Mar- 
cianus ; the other, to the plebs of Arles, who will choose a successor to 
their excommunicated bishop. Benson, p. 318. But we need not thus 
divide the action to be taken: the Pope is to write ‘‘in provinciam et ad 
plebem consistentem”. The only delicate question is to know who ex- 
communicates Marcianus. It is Rome, no doubt. Once the sentence is 
pronounced at Rome, it will be carried out by the bishops of Gaul and 
the plebs of Arles, who will choose a bishop for the see which is treated 
as vacant. Cyprian writes: ‘‘. . . litterae quibus abstento Marciano 
alius in loco eius substituatur”. Harnack (‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. 14, p. 494) 


980 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


‘“‘ Sionifica plane nobis quis in locum Marciani Arelate 
fuerit substitutus, ut sclamus ad quem fratres nostros diri- 
gere et cui scribere debeamus.’’! 

In the body of the letter itself, Cyprian enumerates the 
motives that should induce Stephen to intervene: it is 
necessary to rescue the souls Marcianus is abandoning and 
driving into despair through his rigorism ; it is necessary to 
uphold the discipline sanctioned by Pope Cornelius and his 
successor Lucius, and, since he is their successor, Stephen 
is more bound to see to this than any other bishop. After 
such good, but general reasons, why does not Cyprian person- 
ally intervene at Arles? Why does he urge the Bishop of 
Rome alone to move in the matter? The conduct of the 
Bishop of Carthage in this conjuncture is in contradiction 
with his previous declarations. 

Does not this show that it was the Bishop of Carthage, 
and the Council of Carthage which acted under his influence, 
that had been innovating, in their previous declarations ? 
Felicissimus of Carthage, when he lays before the Roman 
Church the complaint of his party against the legitimacy of 
Cyprian’s election, attests that in Africa the traditional 
Roman fact is accepted and that it is deemed lawful to ap- 
peal in a case involving the deposition of bishops to the 
judgment of the ecclesia principalis ; Basilides attests the 
same when he appeals to the same Roman Church from the 
sentence which had deprived him of the see of Leon, and 
Martialis of the see of Astorga. The Bishop of Lyons and 
the other bishops of Gaul have applied to the Roman Church 
to bring to his senses, or—if need be—to depose the Bishop 
of Arles. Cyprian’s letter to Stephen, which acquaints us 
with this fact, expresses approval of the step taken by the 
Gallic episcopate. The Bishop of Lyons is faithful to the 
tradition of St. Ireneus, from whom he is separated by hardly 
two generations: what we may venture to call the ultra- 
montanism of Faustinus, of Basilides, and even of the un- 


admits that the Bishop of Rome has over the Bishop of Arles a power 
which the bishops of Gaul have not. So too do Sohm (‘‘ Kirchenrecht,” 
p. 381), and Ritschl (‘‘ Cyprian,”’ p. 228). 

1 ἐς Salutis inimicum”. These last words imply that the case of 
Marcianus will be satisfactorily judged at Rome. 


δὰ = 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 381 


fortunate Felicissimus, appears far better authorized to call 
itself traditional Catholicism than is the restless and incon- 
sistent provincialism of the Africans. 

Gallicanism and Donatism—those two grave errors on the 
constitution of Catholicism—were, then, involved in these 
disputes. An action of Cyprian is about to cause the 
controversy to spread to the whole Church, and Rome is 
about to speak. We are come to the climax of the early 
history of ecclesiology. 


IV. 


Cyprian caused a question to be put to him by Magnus, 
a layman of distinction, and he answers in an epistle which 
is less a letter than a treatise. Must those heretics who have 
received baptism from heretics, be baptized when they come 
to the Catholic Church? Magnus explains that there is no 
question of re-baptism, but only whether baptism given by 
heretics, and especially by the Novatians, is not to be re- 
garded as a profane cleansing, whether we are not to hold 
that the Church alone imparts valid baptism. Cyprian 
answers: heretics and schismatics have neither the right nor 
the power to administer baptism.1 

The question had already been under consideration. As 
we Shall see, the absolute rejection of heretical baptism had 
been pronounced by the Council of Africa some thirty years 
before ; a similar decision had been taken by several councils 
of Asia Minor, about the same time; as likewise at Antioch 
and in Northern Syria. On the other hand, at Alexandria, 
in Palestine, and especially at Rome, it was admitted that 
baptism strictly so called could not be repeated—indeed in 
those quarters, this was deemed a point that did not need 
discussion. What was invalid in such cases was the at- 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,” txrx. 1: ‘*. . . an inter ceteros haereticos eos quoque 
qui a Novatiano veniunt post profanum eius lavacrum baptizari et sanctifi- 
cari in ecclesia catholica legitimo et vero et unico ecclesiae baptismo 
oporteat. De quare .. . dicimus omnes omnino haereticos et schisma- 
ticos nihil habere potestatis ac iuris”. This letter dates probably from 
the early months of the year 255. See A. Θ᾿ Ατιὴβ, ‘‘ La Question bap- 
tismale au temps de Saint Cyprien,” printed separately from the ‘‘ Revue 
des Quest. hist.” April, 1907. 


982 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


tempt to confer the Holy Ghost through the imposition of 
the hands of heretics: this alone, it was maintained, must 
be repeated by the bishops in the case of heretics who 
wished to enter the Catholic Church.! 

Cyprian would not have suggested to Magnus to put the 
question to him, had not this disagreement between Rome 
and Carthage, on a matter affecting the conditions of salvation, 
become a subject of scruples for many of the faithful. It is 
this which must account for the care he takes to enlighten 
Magnus. He enumerates the Biblical proofs which justify 
the African custom. ‘The most conclusive text is unques- 
tionably the one in which Christ says: “δὲ ecclesiam con- 
tempserit sit tibt tanquam ethnicus et publicanus” (Matt. 
xvill. 17). From this text it may be inferred that heretics 
and schismatics are to be treated as pagans and publicans, 
inasmuch as in their rebellion against the Church they erect 
false altars, appoint unlawful bishops, offer up sacrilegious 
sacrifices, and lie in all that they promise.” 

Cyprian did not allow himself to be restricted to the 
casuistry of the problem: he saw at once the far-reaching 
importance of the controversy that was then beginning. 
Whereas, in the “De Unitate,’ he considered only the 
unity in each Church and purposely confined the dispute 
within limits, he has now in view only the universal Church. 

In fact, there is but one Church, and of this Church it 
is sald: ‘‘ Hortus conclusus soror mea sponsa, fons signatus, 
puteus aquae vivae” (Cant. τ. 12). The Church is this closed 
garden, closed against the profane and the strangers. Whoever 
is outside cannot approach this sealed spring, this well of living 
water; those only can baptize with its water, who are with- 
in the closed garden. The Church is the ark of Noe: 
could any one be saved outside the ark? St. Paul declares 
that Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for her, that 
He might sanctify her, purgans cam lavacro aquae (Eph, 
v. 25-26); can any one expect to be cleansed in this bath 
outside the Church ?® 

But, some may object, the faith of the Novatians is the 
same as that of the Church. Not at all, Cyprian answers. 


1Ducuesne, ‘‘ Hist. ane.,” vol. 1. p. 422. 
2 ἐς Hpistule,” Lxrx. 1. Cf. 3-6. ᾿ 8 Ibid, 2, 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 383 


Their creed is not our creed, or they lie when they profess 
our creed; for the Church is mentioned in our Creed, but 
they have not got the Church; and forgiveness of sins 18 
likewise mentioned in it, but they do not believe in this for- 
giveness through the Church. As to God the Father, 
Christ and the Holy Ghost, in whose name they baptize, we 
erant that they believe in them: but had not Core, Dathan 
and Abiron the same faith as Moses? Still, not the less 
on that account were they struck by God, although they 
were less guilty than Novatian, since they only disputed 
the censer with Aaron, whereas Novatian contends for 
“‘ cathedram et prvmatum,” the chair and the primacy, and 
at the same time claims the privilege of baptizing and 
offering up the Holy Sacrifice, ‘‘ baptizandt atque offerendr 
licentiam”’ (δια. 8). 

We may go still further: imasmuch as they disobey the 
Church and are stubborn in their disobedience, the heretics 
and schismatics show that they have not the Holy Ghost. 
Hence, even supposing they could baptize, they could not 
give the Holy Ghost. But this is asserting too little: who- 
ever has not the Holy Ghost cannot even baptize (ib. 10). 
For baptism forgives sins, and sins are forgiven only by 
those who have the Holy Ghost, according to the text: 
“ Accipite Spiritum sanctum, si curus remiseritis peccata, 
remittentur ei” (John xx. 22). Now the heretics and schis- 
matics do not give what they have not: “Θεοῦ haereticr 
et schismatici non dant Sprritum Sanctum”? The Church 
alone possesses the Holy Ghost. 

Cyprian had declared and defended his belief in his 
letter to Magnus: he succeeded in getting it approved in 
the Council of Africa held in the autumn of the year 255. 
He himself composed the synodal letter with his own hand. 
This document was addressed to eighteen bishops of Numidia 
who had, in a letter, laid before the Council assembled at 
Carthage, the question of the validity of the baptism of 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,” uxrx. 7. Here he falls into the fallacy of confusing 
baptismal and penitential discipline. The mention of the Church in 
the baptismal creed is attested by Tertullian and by Marcion. Hann, 
p. 387. 

2Tbid.. 11. 


984 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


heretics. These Numidian bishops, impressed by the con- 
trary custom followed at Rome, had evidently misgivings 
as to the lawfulness of the custom followed in Africa.} 

At the outset Cyprian states that the Bishops of Numidia, 
who have questioned the Council, keep what he calls ‘‘ verit- 
atem et firmitatem catholicae regulae,’ viz. the principle 
that the baptism of heretics is null. He urges also an argu- 
ment not mentioned in his letter to Magnus: namely, that this 
principle is not new but had been laid down long before by 
the Bishops of Africa and had been observed by them.? This 
argument would seem to imply that the bishops of Numidia 
had alleged a more ancient custom than the one then pre- 
vailing. 

Another argument which is hardly mentioned in the 
letter to Magnus, but to which the Council seems to have 
attached a decisive importance, is that, among heretics, the 
minister of baptism cannot confer it validly, because the 
baptismal water must first be cleansed and sanctified by the 
bishop: but how could it be cleansed by a minister who is 
not clean, and sanctified by a minister who has not the 
Holy Ghost? Again, the baptized neophyte must be 
anointed with the oil of chrism sanctified by the bishop upon 
the altar: but how could it be sanctified by a minister who 
has neither an altar, nor a church, nor a Eucharist? Still 
more precisely: the validity of the sanctification of the oil 
and of the bread on the altar depends upon the intervention 
of the Holy Spirit: now heretics have not the Holy Spirit. 
“Quis autem potest dare quod upse non habeat, aut quomodo 
potest spiritalia gerere qui upse amaserit Spiritum sanctum?” 4 

1 ἐς Epistulae,” uxx. 1. 


2Tbid.: ‘©. . . sententiam nostram non novam promimus, sed iam 
pridem ab antecessoribus nostris statutam et a nobis observatam vobis- 
cum. ... ” Tertullian, ‘‘De Baptismo,” 15, upheld the doctrine now 
advocated by Cyprian. 

3Tbid. 1: **. . . quomodo autem mundare et sanctificare aquam po- 
test qui ipse immundus est et apud quem sanctus Spiritus non est?” 
Hence Cyprian urges two reasons against the validity of heretical bap- 
tism : first, the unworthiness of the minister ; secondly, the absence of the 
Holy Spirit. 

4 Ibid. ἃ. Cf. ibid. 3: ‘*Si autem sanctum Spiritum dare non potest 
quia foris constitutus cum sancto Spiritu non est, nec baptizare venientem 
potest, quando et baptisma unum sit, et Spiritus sanctus unus, et una 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 385 


Notwithstanding the arguments from tradition and from 
theological reasons brought forward by Cyprian in its behalf, 
the decision of the Council of Carthage of the year 255 met 
with opposition in Africa. This we see from the letter sent 
by Cyprian to a Bishop of Mauritania, Quintus, who had 
despatched to Carthage the priest Lucian, in order to learn 
what to believe. In reply, Cyprian sends him the synodal 
letter of the council of Carthage of the year 255, accompanied 
with a short commentary. 

The point of fact, to which Cyprian had merely alluded 
in the synodal epistle, is now clearly stated: a Council 
of Carthage held under the episcopate of Agrippinus, about 
the year 220, was the first council to lay down the principle 
that baptism by heretics is always null.) 

On the other hand, those African bishops who uphold 
the validity of the baptism of heretics, oppose to the author- 
ity of the two Councils of Carthage (the Council of the year 
220 and that of the year 255) a custom which they believe 
to be ancient: ““ Dicunt se in hoc veterem consuetudinem 
sequr”. Somewhat brusquely Cyprian sets aside this mode 
of argument, and, with Tertullian in his mind, ventures to 
lay down the principle, “‘ Von est de consuetudine praescri- 
bendum, sed ratione vincendum’”’ 2 


ecclesia a Christo Domino nostro super Petrum origine unitatis et ratione 
fundata. Ita fit ut cum omnia apud illos inania et falsa sint, nihil eorum 
quod illi gesserint probari a nobis debeat.” 

*“ Epistulae,” τιχχτ. 4: ‘Quod quidem et Agrippinus bonae me- 
moriae vir cum ceteris coepiscopis suis qui illo tempore in provincia 
Africa et Numidia ecclesiam Domini gubernabant statuit, et librata con- 
silii communis examinatione firmavit. Quorum sententiam religiosam et 
legitimam, salutarem fidei et ecclesiae catholicae congruentem, nos etiam 
secuti sumus.” Cf. “ Epistulae,” txxm. 3: “ . . . quando anni sint iam 
multi et longa aetas, ex quo sub Agrippino,” ete. 

“Ibid. 2 and 3. Compare the anonymous treatise ‘De Rebaptis- 
mate,” 1 (Hartet, vol. m.), which affirms that the Roman custom 
is upheld ‘‘ vetustissima consuetudine ac traditione ecclesiastica,” and 
‘‘observatione antiquissima”. Ibid. 3: ‘‘ Ad quae forte tu, qui novum 
quid inducis. .. .” Ibid. 6: [** Utile est] tot annorum totque eccle- 
siarum itemque apostolorum et episcoporum auctoritati cum bona ratione 
adquiescere, cum sit maximum incommodum ac dispendium sanctissimae 
matris ecclesiae adversus prisca consulta post tot saeculorum tantam 
seriem nunc primum repente ac sine ratione insurgere.” The treatise 


“106 Rebaptismate ” was written by an African bishop who upheld the 
25 


986 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM. 


What was the decisive reason for the bishops who hold 
that the baptism of heretics is valid? There is only one 
baptism, they say. But Cyprian replies: Of course, there 
is only one baptism, and this is why we do not rebaptize, 
but baptize; and if we baptize the heretics that become con- 
verts, it is because outside the Church no one can baptize, 
and because nothing can be received from him who has 
nothing to give. How imprudent are those bishops who 
honour heretics so far as to acknowledge in them the power 
of giving valid baptism, who “‘set the filthy and profane 
washing of heretics above the true and only and lawful 
baptism of the Catholic Church, not reflecting that it is 
written: “Qut baptizatur a mortuo, quid proficit lavatione 
evus?” (Hecli. xxx. 30).’” 

During the early part of the year 256, the discussion 
was still going on: the Bishop of Carthage had not been 
able to overcome the opposition which the African doctrine 
encountered even in Africa. The Council held at Carthage, 
a short while before EKaster, had again to take up the ques- 
tion. The seventy-one bishops of Africa and Numidia, who 
were present, declared their accord with Cyprian and con- 
firmed the declaration of the Council of the year 255: 
« _.. Hoc idem denuo sententia nostra firmavimus, 
statuentes unum baptisma esse quod sit in ecclesia catholica 
constitutum ”. 

St. Cyprian wrote immediately to Pope Stephen and told 
him of this decision, which he thought well calculated to 
strengthen both unity and episcopal authority, the two 
principles which lay so close to his heart. 

ἜΝ 

On their arrival at Rome, Cyprian’s delegates were re- 
ceived as heretics: they were denied communion and hos- 
pitality ; Pope Stephen refused even to listen to them. At 
Rome, at this time, Cyprian was treated as a false Christ, a 
false Apostle, a deceitful worker.’ 


Roman teaching on baptism: it was composed probably immediately 
before the Council of Africa held in September, 256. 

1 ἐς Kpistulae,’? Lxxt. 1. 2 Ibid. τιχχττι. 1. 

* As to the date of this episode, cf. ΘΌΘΉΒΕΝΕ, ‘‘ Hist. anc.,’ 
p. 425, 


Pa 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 387 


This change of attitude on the part of the Romans 
would be inexplicable, had we not some reason for thinking 
that Rome had made a pronouncement a short time before, 
and that Cyprian, together with the Council of Africa, had 
ignored this decision, just as they had done previously in the 
case of the two Spanish bishops.' If so, Cyprian’s epistle to 
Jubaianus (written in the summer of the year 256) will 
have been an intended censure of the doctrine as affirmed 
by Pope Stephen, especially of the underlying principle to 
which Cyprian thus refers: Let not any one, he says, plead 
against us, for the circumvention of Christian truth, the 
power of the name of Christ, or say: ‘‘ ln nomine Jesu 
Christi? ubicumque et quomodocumque® gratiam baptism 
sunt consecutr,” 4 

After speaking with this firmness, Rome could not allow 
that the question was still unsettled. Still less could it 
permit the Bishop of Carthage to send to Pope Stephen the 
following ill-inspired lines :— 

‘‘Haec ad conscientiam tuam, frater carissime, et pro 
honore communi et pro simplici dilectione pertulimus, cre- 


1See ‘‘ Epistulae,” Lxxm1. 4, an allusion to a (Roman 7) letter, which 
is no longer extant. DUCHESNE, op. cit. p. 424. Cyprian answers this 
letter in his epistle to Jubaianus. 

2 By baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, we must understand 
baptism given in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost : Pope Stephen could not think of any other rite. In his invective 
against Stephen, Firmilian writes: ‘‘Illud quoque absurdum quod non 
putant [i.e. the Romans] quaerendum esse quis sit ille qui baptizaverit, 
eo quod qui baptizatus sit gratiam consequi potuerit invocata trinitate 
nominum Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti.” ‘‘ Epistulae,” Lxxv. 9. Cf. 
‘¢ Kpistulee,”’ Lxxm. 18. Compare the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria 
to Philemon (Euses. “Ἢ. E.” νπ΄ 7: τοῦτον ἐγὼ τὸν κανόνα κ.τ.λ.). 
ἘΈΠΤΟΕ, ‘‘ Letters of D. of A.” (Cambridge, 1904), pp. 53-4. 

3 These two words—ubicumque, quomodocumque, do not imply that 
any form suffices, but that any minister, servatis servandis, suffices. 
Tertullian (‘‘De Baptismo,” 17) teaches that the bishop is the ordinary 
minister of baptism, but that in case of necessity baptism can be given by 
laymen: ‘‘. . . etiam laicisiusest; . . . baptismus ab omnibus exerceri 
potest”. Pope Stephen abides by this principle, whereas Cyprian disre- 
gards it. 

4 ἐς Bpistulae,” Lxxu. 16. Compare ‘‘ De Rebaptismate,”’ 10 : ‘* Red- 
damus et permittamus virtutibus caelestibus vires suas,’’ etc. 


25 ἢ 


988 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


dentes etiam tibi pro religionis tuae et fidei veritate placere 
quae et religiosa pariter et vera sunt. 

‘““Ceterum scimus quosdam quod semel inbiberint nolle 
deponere nec propositum suum facile mutare, sed salvo inter 
collegas pacis et concordiae vinculo quaedam propria quae 
apud se semel sint usurpata retinere. Qua in re nec nos 
vim cuiquam facimus, aut legem damus, quando habeat in 
ecclesiae administratione voluntatis suae arbitrium liberum 
unusquisque praepositus, rationem actus sui Domino reddi- 
turus.”’! 

These are painful words, especially in view of the con- 
tradictions in which we feel that Cyprian is becoming 
more and more entangled. He holds, or at least he held but 
recently, that the doctrine of the nullity of heretical 
baptism is an article of the “‘ catholica regula”; now he de- 
clares this article to be one of those on which bishops may 
differ among themselves, without detriment to concord. He 
disclaims any intention to impose authoritatively anything 
on anybody, since every bishop enjoys autonomy in his own 
territory and is amenable to God alone for his administration : 
it is strange that the Bishop of Carthage should speak thus 
after his action in the case of Marcianus of Arles. It is 
strange, again, that he should speak of concord which is 
above all things, at the very moment when he claims for 
bishops the right to be discordant, and seems to withdraw 
all primacy from the Roman Church. 

Stephen answered Cyprian in a letter of which the de- 
cisive passage alone is extant :— 

‘$1 qui ergo a quacumque haeresi venient ad vos, nihil 
innovetur nisi quod traditum est, ut manus illis imponatur 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,’’? uxu. 3. Similar insinuations are found in the letter to 
Quintus (Lxx1. 1): ‘* Quidam de collegis nostris malunt haereticis honorem 
dare quam nobis consentire’”’. ‘‘ Nec Petrus, quem primum Dominus 
elegit et super quem aedificavit ecclesiam suam, cum secum Paulus de 
circumcisione postmodum disceptaret, vindicavit sibi aliquid insolenter 
aut adroganter adsumpsit, ut diceret se primatum tenere et obtemperari 
a novellis et posteris sibi potius oportere, nec despexit Paulum. . . .” 
(ibid. 3). These last lines reveal both the authority which Cyprian felt 
was armed against him at Rome, and the bitterness he felt about it. 
This was in the beginning of the year 256. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 389 


in paenitentiam, cum ipsi haeretici proprie alterutrum ad se 
venientes non baptizent, sed communicent tantum.” ! 

We may place this sort of edict side by side with that 
of Callistus regarding penance: in both the same authority 
speaks in the same style. Unlike Callistus, this authority 
does not now address the Roman community; it addresses 
the Bishop of Carthage and all the African Bishops, and in 
addressing them lays down the law in such terms as to con- 
vey the impression that it expects, indeed is sure, to be 
obeyed. Writing to Stephen, Cyprian had said: ‘“‘ We 
neither do violence to any, nor lay down a law—aut legem 
damus—since each bishop has, in the government of his 
Church, the free control of his will, and owes an account of 
his conduct to the Lord only”. In answer to those impru- 
dent words, Rome intimated to him the law. 

It may be that Pope Stephen used harsh words in his 
communication to the Bishop of Carthage; but all we know 
of the matter is from Cyprian, who, under the influence of 
too human an emotion, may have been led to find every- 
thing in Pope Stephen’s decision ‘‘ arrogant, irrelevant, con- 
tradictory, unlearned, short-sighted’? Evidently the soul 
of Cyprian was more primitive than that of Fénelon! It 
was likely that he would regard Stephen’s allusions to the 


1 ἐς Kpistulae,” txxiv. 1. Cf. Euses. “ H. E.”’ vit. 3, who gives the 
true meaning of the formula, nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum est : Μὴ 
δεῖν τε νεώτερον παρὰ τὴν κρατήσασαν ἀρχῆθεν παράδοσιν ἐπικαινοτομεῖν. 
We must not make any innovation contrary to the tradition which has 
been held from the beginning. The same meaning is also assigned by 
Vincent of Lerins, ‘‘Commonitor.” τ. 6. The translation given by 
Eusebius is preferable to that given by Tillemont and Bossuet, accord- 
ing to whom, Stephen meant to say that nothing must be repeated except 
what tradition declares must be repeated, i.e. not baptism, but the im- 
position of hands. Compare the ‘‘ Nihil innovandum”’ of the letter of 
the Roman clergy to Cyprian (‘‘ Epistulae,” xxx. 8) and the ‘‘ Nihil in- 
novetur " of Cyprian’s letter to his people (‘‘ Epistulae,” xt. 3). The 
formula ‘‘ Manus illis imponatur in paenitentiam” is understood by St. 
Cyprian as though it meant ‘‘ manum imponere ad accipiendum Spiritum 
Sanctum”. ““ Epistulae,” txxm.1. It must be confessed, however, that 
the formula of Pope Stephen, as we have it in the document above quoted, 
is ambiguous. So also is the formula in the ‘‘ De Rebaptismate,” 2-6. 

2 Ibid. : ‘* Nam inter cetera vel superba, vel ad rem non pertinentia, 
vel sibi ipsi contraria, quae imperite atque improvide scripsit. . . .” 


390 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


traditional Roman fact as arrogant and out of place; for to 
justify the Roman custom regarding baptism, Stephen had 
cited the Apostles to whom he traced it back.1_ He invoked 
the Apostles Peter and Paul, as his surest authorities.2 But 
he appealed also to the authority of his own episcopal chair, 
not that of his Church merely: an authority he justified by 
the fact that, sitting in that chair, he was the heir of St. 
Peter. This we learn from Firmilian, who tells us how vexed 
he felt about it: ‘‘Atque ego in hac parte iuste indignor ad 
hanc tam apertam et manifestam Stephani stultitiam, quod 
qui sic de episcopatus sui loco gloriatur® et se successionem 
Petri tenere contendit, super quem fundamenta Ecclesiae 
collocata sunt. . . . Stephanus qui per successionem cathe- 
dram Petri habere se praedicat.”’ 4 

Pope Stephen, then, affirmed the primacy of the see of 
Rome—a primacy dating back to St. Peter and giving to 


the Bishop of Rome a right over the other bishops of the 
Christian world. 


The Council of Africa, which met at Carthage on 1 Sept- 


?This argument of Stephen is known to us through Firmilian, ‘‘ Inter 
Cypriani Kpistul.” txxv. 5: ‘‘ Et quidem quantum ad id pertineat quod 
Stephanus dixit, quasi apostoli eos qui ab haeresi veniunt baptizari pro- 
hibuerint et hoc custodiendum posteris tradiderint, plenissime vos re- 
spondistis neminem tam stultum esse qui hoc credat apostolos tradidisse,”’ 
under the pretext that heresies arose a long while after the Apostolic age. 
In his letter to Jubaianus, some time before receiving Stephen’s answer, 
Cyprian had already refused to accept this argument based on the Apostles, 
** Kpistulae,” Lxxu1. 13: ‘* Nec quisquam dicat : Quod accepimus ab apos- 
tolis hoc sequimur”. Ibid. 9: ‘*Quod autem quidam dicunt,” ete. 

*This we know also from Firmilian, txxv. 6: ‘‘ Quod nunc Steph- 
anus ausus est facere, rumpens adversus vos pacem, quam semper 
antecessores elus vobiscum amore et honore mutuo custodierunt, adhue 
etiam infamans Petrum et Paulum beatos apostolos, quasi hoc ipsi tra- 
diderint. . . .” 

*A bishop speaks of his rank, locus, that is, in the ordo of the 
Church in which he has the primacy, primatum, over the priests, the 
deacons, and so on. On the contrary, Stephen glories in the rank of his 
episcopate, in comparison to the other bishops: de episcopatus sui loco 
gloriatur. This distinction is to be noticed, and agrees well with the claim 
to be the bishop of bishops. 

4. “ὁ Epistulae,” Lxxv. 17. We may recall the allusions of Cyprian 
(‘‘ Epistulae,” Lxx1. 3, quoted above) to the humility of Peter who was not 
80 arrogant as to assume primacy Over Paul, and so on. 


ee δ 7. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 391 


ember, 256, under the presidency of St. Cyprian, took 
upon itself to answer the Bishop of Rome. 

On opening the session, Cyprian had three letters 
read to the assembled bishops: the letter he had received 
from Jubaianus, the letter he had sent to Jubaianus, and the 
letter in which Jubaianus thanked Cyprian and declared he 
fully accepted the teaching of the Bishop of Carthage as to 
the nullity of heretical baptisms. Nothing was read from 
the correspondence of Stephen, his name was not even men- 
tioned ;! and yet there was no bishop more present than he 
to that Council of Africa whose members were greatly 
disturbed by the lesson the Bishop of Rome had just given 
to the Bishop of Carthage. The deliberation was opened: 
in acting as we are doing, Cyprian declared, ‘“‘ we do not 
judge any one, or deprive any one of the right of communion, 
if he differs from us. For no one of us sets himself up as a 
bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror forces his colleagues 
to obey; every bishop, in the full use of his liberty and 
power, has the right of forming his own judgment, and 
can no more be judged by another than he can himself judge 
another”. Bishops deliberating in council begin by pro- 
claiming their individual autonomy, so assured are they of 
their unanimity! And the Bishop of Rome is forbidden to 
make his voice heard: “ Neque enim quisquam nostrum epis- 
copum se eprscoporum constiturt” !* One after the other, the 
eighty-seven bishops gave their vote and stated its grounds: 
they held no other doctrine than that of Cyprian. One of 


1 See, however (‘‘ Sententiae,” 8) the sententia of Crescens, Bishop of 
Cirta. The Council of 1 September met after Stephen’s decree had 
reached Carthage. Ducuzsne, ‘‘ Hist. anc.” vol. 1. p. 426. 

2 «* Sententiae episcoporum ” (inter Cypriani opera, ed. Harret, vol. 
1. p. 435 and foll.), prologue. The text is as follows : ‘‘ Superest ut de hac 
ipsa re singuli quid sentiamus proferamus, neminem iudicantes aut a 
iure communicationis aliquem, si diversum senserit, amoventes. Neque 
enim quisquam nostrum episcopum se episcoporum constituit, aut tyran- 
nico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem collegas suos adigit, quando habeat 
omnis episcopus pro licentia libertatis et potestatis suae arbitrium pro- 
prium, tamque iudicari ab alio non possit, quam nec ipse possit alterum 
iudicare. Sed expectemus universi iudicium Domini nostri Iesu Christi, 
qui unus et solus habet potestatem et praeponendi nos in ecclesiae suae 
gubernatione, et de actu nostro iudicandi.” D’Atms, ‘‘ Quest. bapt.” pp. 
26-7, suggests a more favourable interpretation of Cyprian’s words, 


892 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


them, Zosimus, Bishop of Tharassa, made use of these 
words: “ Revelatione facta veritatis cedat error veritati, quia 
et Petrus qui prius circumcidebat cessit Paulo veritatem prae- 
dicantt”.1 Rome was summoned to give in. 

But, at that very moment, Pope Stephen was forwarding 
to all the churches of Christendom the decision by which he 
acknowledged the validity of baptism conferred by heretics. 
Rome was sure of obtaining the adhesion of the Alexandrian 
Church, whose bishop, Dionysius, seems to have been 
sounded by Stephen, even before the Council of Carthage 
gave its decision.?, Immediately after the Council, Cyprian 
sent one of his deacons to Cesarea of Cappadocia, to win 
over to his side Firmilian, the highly respected bishop of 
that city. Was the whole episcopal body to be divided into 
two hostile camps: on the one side, Rome and Alexandria, 
on the other, Africa and Asia Minor? Notwithstanding 
some affirmations to the contrary, Rome did not as yet 
excommunicate any Church; but she spoke of severing 
relations with the Churches that would not acknowledge the 
validity of heretical baptism.* In the name of the Churches 
of Cappadocia, Cilicia and Galatia, Firmilian replied to 
Cyprian in a letter which had probably been prepared in a 
council. This document, which is the more important 
because Firmilian was an immediate disciple of Origen, is 
from beginning to end such a violent philippic against Pope 
Stephen that we easily understand why formerly the copyists 
hesitated to reproduce it in their MSS.* 


1 ἐς Sententiae,’”’ 56. 2Huses. * H. EH.” vir. 2. 

3 ἐς Epistulae,” Lxxiv. 8: ‘*. . . haereticorum amicus et inimicus 
christianorum sacerdotes Dei veritatem Christi et ecclesiae unitatem 
tuentes abstinendos putat”. Here Cyprian denounces Stephen as having 
thought of excommunicating the bishops of the opposition ; but the Pope 
did not in fact excommunicate them. This interpretation is confirmed 
by a passage of Firmilian’s letter (Lxxv. 4) and of a letter of Dionysius of 
Alexandria (Eusres. ‘‘H. E.” vir. 5, 4). Brnson, p. 354. DucHESNE, 
**Eglises separées,” p. 147. BarpENHEWER, vol. 11. p. 462. D’AtEs, 
p. 38. TurRmEL’s arguments to the contrary have ποῦ convinced us. 
‘* Hist. du dogme de la pap,” vol. 1. p. 157. 

* As regards the authenticity of Firmilian’s epistle, see BarpEN- 
HEWER, vol, τι. p. 271, and BrEnson, pp. 377-89. Unquestionably Fir- 
milian took a great deal from the letters Cyprian had sent him, and 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 393 


In Firmilian’s eyes, the Catholic Church 1s primarily 
hierarchical. How great his error, how exceeding his blind- 
ness, who says that baptism or forgiveness of sins can be 
validly given by heretics. For whoever uses such language, 
abandons the foundation of the Church which was set by 
Christ on one rock, and forgets that Christ gave the Holy 
Ghost to the Apostles only :— 

‘‘Potestas ergo peccatorum remittendorum! apostolis data 
est, et ecclesiis quas 111 a Christo missi constituerunt, et 
episcopis qui eis ordinatione vicaria successerunt ”’. 

The Apostles received from Christ a potestas which they 
transmitted to the Churches they established, and to the 
bishops who are their successors. Firmilian does not ex- 
plain and would have found it very hard to explain how a 
Church, as such, is the depositary of this power; hence he 
adds presently that bishops are the ministers of this potestas, 
because they succeed the Apostles and hold their place. We 
cannot but be struck with the distinctness with which he 
affirms the hierarchical character of the Church and the apos- 
tolic character of the hierarchy: without the bishop, no bap- 
tism, no priesthood, no altar, no Church. Firmilian cannot 
forgive Pope Stephen the gross error of acknowledging in 
heretics and in rebels, like Core, Dathan and Abiron of old, 
the power to administer baptism validly, “‘ Maximam gratiae 
potestatem,”’ and the other Sacraments of the Church, ‘‘ magna 
et caelestia ecclesiae munera,’® of which the hierarchy alone is 
the dispenser. 


re-echoed, in his reply, the words of the latter: this we learn from Fir- 
milian’s own testimony (LXXv. 4). 

1 Firmilian thus designates the baptismal forgiveness of sins. Cf. 
“* Sententiae episcop.” 17 (Fortunatus of Thuccaboris). 

2 ἐς Epistulae,” Lxxv. 16: ““ Qualis error sit et quanta caecitas eius, 
qui remissionem peccatorum dicit apud synagogas haereticorum dari posse, 
nec permanet in fundamento unius ecclesiae quae semel a Christo super 
petram solidata est, hinc intellegi potest quod soli Petro Christus dixerit : 
Quaecumque ligaveris, etc. [Matt. xvi. 19], et iterum in euangelio 
quando in solos apostolos insufflavit Christus dicens : Accipite spiritwm, 
etc. [Ioan. xx. 22]. Potestasergo.. . successerunt. Hostes autem unius 
catholicae ecclesiae, in qua nos sumus, et adversarii nostri qui apostolis 
successimus, sacerdotia sibi inlicita contra nos vindicantes et altaria pro- 
fana ponentes, quid aliud sunt quam Core et Dathan et Abiron ?”’ 

8. Tbid. 17. 


904 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


‘* Haeretici, si se ab Ecclesia Dei sciderint, nihil habere 
potestatis aut gratiae possunt, quando omnis potestas et 
gratia in Kcclesia constituta sit, ubi praesident maiores natu 
qui et baptizandi et manum imponendi et ordinandi habent 
potestatem ᾿ (LXxv. 7). 

A heretic can neither ordain, nor lay on hands, nor bap- 
tize, because he is “ alienus ὦ spiritali et deifica sanctitate”’. 
We defined, says Firmilian, this article of belief against the 
heretics a long time ago in a council held at Iconium, which 
was attended by the bishops of Phrygia, Galatia, Cilicia and 
neighbouring regions.! 

On what does the unity of the hierarchy depend? 
That unity is a fact, Firmilian knows it well and his sense of 
it is as vivid as Cyprian’s own. He rejoices to feel himself 
in communion with the Bishop of Carthage, however distant 
from each other they are, ‘‘ quasi non unam tantum regionem 
tenentes, sed in ἄρδω atque in eadem domo simul inhabi- 
tantes”’.? Jt is a “unanimity of faith and truth,” and he 
gives thanks for it to God, its author. 

“Quod totum hoc fit divina unitate. Nam cum Dominus 
unus atque idem sit qui habitat in nobis, coniungit ubique 
et copulat suos vinculo unitatis’’ (LXxv. 3). 

Precarious unity! Like Cyprian, Firmilian is pleased 
to think that it accommodates itself to differences in all that 
is not essential. He recalls that there is diversity regarding 
the date of Easter “et circa multa alia divinae rei sacra- 
menta,” thus probably designating the liturgy. In several 
questions Rome does not agree with Jerusalem: “‘ Jn ceteris 
quoque plurvmis provinciis multa pro locorum et hominum 
diversitate variantur, nec tamen propter hoc ab ecclesiae 
catholicae pace atque unitate aliquando discessum est”’ 
(LXxv. 6). 

Firmilian is not concerned about this diversity, so con- 
vinced is he that unity is secured by truth, truth by tradition, 
and tradition by the hierarchy. He does not imagine that 


1 Kpistulae,” Lxxv. 7. Of. ibid. 19: ‘‘In Iconio diligentissime trac- 
tavimus et confirmavimus repudiandum esse omne omnino baptisma quod 
sit extra ecclesiam constitutum”. This Council of Iconium may have 
been held about the year 230. ΒΈΝΒΟΝ, p. 348. 

5 Ibid. 1. 


as ee ee 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 895 


a judge of disputes can be needed; hence his indignation 
on seeing the Bishop of Rome claim to be that judge. Un- 
kindness, audacity, presumption, blindness, absurdity, fool- 
ishness, wrath—this litany of insults hardly suffices for the 
Bishop of Caesarea to express his feeling. 

‘Quin immo tu haereticis omnibus peior es. Nam cum 
inde multi cognito errore suo ad te veniant ut Hcclesiae 
verum lumen accipiant, tu venientium errores adiuvas, et 
obscurato lumine ecclesiasticae veritatis tenebras haereticae 
noctis adcumulas”’ (Lxxv. 23). 

One asks oneself sadly what became of unity and peace 
in the midst of such invectives. The responsibility les at 
the door of the Bishop of Rome, Firmilian declares: ‘‘ Lotes 
enim et dissensiones quantas parasti per ecclesias totius 
mundi” (ibid. 24)! To believe Firmilian, Stephen is 
alone in his opinion: he cuts himself off from all the other 
Churches: he makes himself ‘a communione ecclesiasticae 
unitatis apostatam” (ibid.); he is not afraid ‘cum tot epis- 
copis per totum mundum drssentire” (ibid. 25). Not even 
for an instant does the thought come to Firmilian’s mind that 
the courage of the Bishop of Rome may spring from his certi- 
tude that he is standing by the true tradition, and that the 
authority as Bishop of bishops which he claims for his in- 
timation of the truth is the legitimate authority of Peter’s 
successor. For Stephen to recall the Roman primacy is, in 
Firmilian’s eyes, a mark of pride and a usurpation. 

After defining the law, Rome was forbearing enough not 
to excommunicate the Churches that questioned its legiti- 
macy. All over the Hast, during the autumn of the year 
256, episcopal synods must have been held which concluded 
for the nullity of the baptism of heretics. The rela- 
tions between Rome and the Churches of Asia Minor were 
doubtless suspended, as they were between Rome and the 
bishops of Africa. This distressing state of affairs lasted 
until 2 August, 257, when Pope Stephen died. ‘“‘ His suc- 
cessors,” writes Mer. Duchesne, “‘ though they maintained 
the custom of the Roman Church, and tried to make it pre- 
vail as far as possible elsewhere, saw no necessity for being 


1Kuses. ““Η. E.” vu. 5, 5, the letter of Dionysius of Alexandria to 
Pope Xystus (FELToR, p. 50). 


396 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


so rigid with those who differed. Dionysius of Alexandria, 
the Irenzeus of this new Victor, though in his diocese he ob- 
served the same custom as Stephen, was not disposed to 
follow him in his severity. He had already written, in 
this sense, to Stephen himself and to two learned priests of 
Rome, Dionysius and Philemon, who naturally agreed with 
their Bishop.t. After the death of Stephen, the new Pope 
Xystus II and his colleagues made it clear that the Roman 
presbyteriwm had modified its attitude. Dionysius of Alex- 
andria, in writing to them, does not disguise his feelings as 
to the gravity of the attempt made by the deceased Pope, 
or as to the importance of keeping the peace, and respecting 
the decisions of largely-attended and important councils. 
His words helped to consolidate the unity, already restored 
by the mere fact of the change of Popes. Xystus and 
Cyprian renewed the relations between Rome and Africa, 
which Stephen had broken off. Correspondence with Fir- 
milian was also resumed. Dionysius, the successor of Xystus, 
came to the assistance of the Cappadocian Church in its dis- 
tress after the invasion of the Persians in 259, and with the 
alms of Roman charity, he sent a message of peace. Happy 
days, when charity was so fervent, and resentment so short- 
lived!” ? 

Pope Xystus II, whom the Africans greeted as a “‘ good 
and peace-making bishop,’ * thus calmed down the contro- 
versy. It had long, however, to wait before the many prob- 
lems to which it gave rise received their final solution. 
Indeed, the final solution came only with the Councils of 
Trent and the Vatican. 


ae 
* 


The baptismal controversy had aroused the discussion of 
principles appertaining to the very structure of the Church. 

First of these was the principle of the validity of the 
sacraments. Outside the Church no sacraments, says 
Cyprian. At Rome, on the contrary, it is maintained that 
baptism can be had outside the Church, inasmuch as the 
grace of baptism is dependent on the rite by which it is ad- 


1 Kuses, ‘‘ H. E.” vu. 5, 6. 2 ἐς Hist. ane.” vol. τ. p. 429. 
3 Pont. ““ Vita Cypriani,” 14. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 397 


ministered; so that, if heretics or schismatics use in the 
administration of this rite the ecclesiastical form, they ad- 
minister validly. Cyprian’s doctrine, which rests on theo- 
logical reasons, 15 a deduction from the axiom: Outside the 
Church no Holy Spirit. Pope Stephen’s doctrine does not 
deny this axiom; but it co-ordinates it with another tra- 
ditional belief—belief in the efficacy ex opere operato of the 
baptismal rite. We shall not say that both doctrines are al- 
most equally ancient, since all the lines of evidence converge 
to establish the priority of the Roman doctrine, and the 
greater solidity of its basis.1 

In the second place, there is the principle of the perpetu- 
ity of the power of orders. Rome has given her decision 
only as regards the validity of the baptism of heretics, and 
has not touched on the cognate question whether the power 
of orders continues among heretics; Cyprian comes forward 
and boldly decides this question in the negative. Here 
again, the teaching of the Bishop of Carthage is a deduction 
from the axiom : Outside the Church no Holy Spirit ; whence 
he concludes, no priesthood, no sacrifice, no Eucharist. A 
logician may go still further and conclude: the power of 
orders, then, can be lost, and bishops, invested lawfully with 
the episcopate, lose the episcopal power of orders, when they 
become schismatics, or heretics, or, we may add, public 
sinners, or even merely sinners; and thus we drift into 
Donatism, Wycliffism, Puritanism. But it will be easy for 
Rome to ward off these errors which the principle of her 
baptismal doctrine already condemns. Like the other axiom 
formulated by Cyprian, ‘‘ Salus extra Ecclestam non est,” * 
the saying: Outside the Church no Holy Spirit, has its 
limitations. But Stephen holds as much as Cyprian that 
the Church alone can impart the Holy Ghost, and this is 


1D’ Axis, pp. 42-4. Cyprian fully realized that he had only theo- 
logical reasons to set against the tradition appealed to by Pope Stephen. 
See his declarations on reason, as opposed to custom (‘‘ Epistulae,” LXxt. 
3), and on the duty to learn (Lxxiv. 10): ‘‘ Oportet episcopos non tantum 
docere, sed et discere, quia et ille melius docet qui cotidie crescit et pro- 
ficit discendo meliora”. All this is appallingly rash and reminds us of 
Tertullian, after he became a Montanist. 

2<¢ Kpistulae,” Lxxi. 21. 


398 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


why at Rome the laying on of hands ad acciprendum 
Spiritum Sanctum has to be repeated by the bishop. 

Third principle: the Catholic Church is one. How can 
Harnack say that the ‘‘ confederation of Churches” was not 
fully realized and formulated before the days of Constantine 
and under his régime? or again that ‘‘ the idea of the one 
exclusive Church, embracing all Christians and founded on 
the bishops was,” in the time of Cyprian, ‘‘a mere theory 

. refuted by the actual circumstances”?! For, so far 
from Cyprian being in advance of his time when he ex- 
presses the idea of Catholic unity with so much insistence 
and eloquence, his doctrine of the “‘empiric”’ catholic unity 
finds deep echoes everywhere. Firmilian, in the name of 
the Churches of Asia Minor and beyond, returns the echo 
to the Bishop of Carthage from far distant Cesarea of 
Cappadocia ; 2 the same echo reaches Rome from Dionysius 
of Alexandria, not without an accent of discreet remon- 
strance, as though Rome had risked the shattering of that 
unity which all conspire to strengthen. 

‘Know now,” he wrote to Pope Stephen, “‘that the 
union is perfect, after having been for a moment com- 
promised, between all the Churches throughout the Hast 
and beyond*; and all the faithful are of one mind. The 
bishops everywhere rejoice greatly in the peace which 
has been unexpectedly recovered.4 Demetrian at Antioch, 
Theoctistus at Cesarea, Mazabbanes at Atlia, Marinus at 
Tyre, Heliodorus at Laodicea, Helenus at Tarsus and all 
the churches of Cilicia, Firmilian and all Cappadocia, .. . 
all Syria and Arabia, to which you daily send succours and 
have just sent some, Mesopotamia, Pontus, Bithynia, in 
short all everywhere rejoice in unanimity and brotherly love 
and return thanks to God.’ Be it remarked, this ‘‘ unanim- 


1 «¢Doomeng.” vol. 14, p. 422. 5 εἰ Epistulae,”’ xxv. 1, 3, 24, 25. 

3 He refers to the reconciliation of the lapsi, and the Novatian schism, 

4 After the persecution of Decius. 

5 Kuses. “Ἢ. E.”’ vir. 5, 1-2 (FELvon, p. 44): ἀγαλλιῶνται πάντες 
πανταχοῦ τῇ ὁμονοίᾳ καὶ φιλαδελφίᾳ. Cf. the Syriac fragment of the same 
letter (FELTOER, p. 47): ‘‘. . . in order that we may be in agreement one 
with another, Churches with Churches, bishops with bishops, priests with 
priests ”’. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 399 


ity’ is that which had just excluded the Novatians from the 
Catholic communion. When we read one after the other 
the ‘‘Sententiae”’ of the eighty-seven bishops assembled for 
the council of Africa in the year 256, we realize how pro- 
found is the sentiment of unity conjoined with an intense 
hatred for heresy and schism, in the hearts of the bishops 
even of the most insignificant Churches of Numidia and 
Mauritania—Mascula, Girba, Buruch, Cuiculum.1 

To say that this sentiment resembles imperialism is to 
misrepresent it. For the confederation of all the Churches 
—visible as it was and hierarchical—presents no analogy 
with the Empire, which is not a spontaneous confederation 
of cities and municipia. The geographical distribution of 
the churches throughout the Empire, their grouping around 
the metropolitical churches, is independent of the territorial 
divisions of the imperial administration. Besides, in the 
East, Catholicism goes beyond the boundaries of the Roman 
Empire. As we have already seen, Dionysius of Alexandria 
speaks of the churches of Mesopotamia as united with the 
ὁμονοία of all the other churches; some fifty years later, 
Eusebius will speak of the Christians of Persia, Media and 
Parthia; as early as the end of the second century, Pantenus 
had preached the Gospel in India, which means either South 
Arabia, or the kingdom of Axum.’ In this its universal 


1 See the ‘‘ Sententiae,” 1 (Caecilius of Biltha), 2 (Primus of Misgirpa), 
5 (Nemesianus of Thubunas: ‘‘haec omnia Ecclesia catholica loquitur 
. nisi in Keclesia catholica quae est una salvi esse non possunt’’), 10 
(Monnulus of Girba: ‘‘ Ecclesiae catholicae matris nostrae veritas semper 
apud nos, fratres, et mansit et manet’’), 14 (Theogenes of Hippo: ‘‘ unum 
baptisma quod est in Ecclesia sancta’’), 17 (Fortunatus of Thuccaboris), 
26 (Felix of Utina: ‘‘sinum matris Ecclesiae’’), 27 (Quietus of Buruc: 
“*. , . vitali baptismate quod in catholica Ecclesia est”), 33 (Felix of 
Bamaccora: ‘‘. . . Ecclesiae nostrae adversarii”), 37 (Vincentius of 
Thibaris : ‘‘ Haereticos scimus esse peiores quam ethnicos’’), 44 (Pelagia- 
nus of Luperciana: ‘‘ Aut Ecclesia Ecclesia est, aut haeresis Ecclesia 
est ...”’), 46 (Felix of Marrazana: ‘‘ Una fides, unum baptisma, sed 
ecclesiae catholicae cui soli licet baptizare”’), 60 (Rogatianus of Nova: 
“ὁ Keclesiam Christus instituit, haeresin diabolus”), 79 (Clarus of Mas- 
cula). Cf. Moncravx, vol. τι. p. 61 and foll. 
*Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” vol. u. p. 121. Ducnesnz, ‘‘The Chris- 
tian Missions south of the Roman Empire,” in ‘‘ Eglises separeés,” pp. 
283-353. 


400 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


dispersion, Catholicism is much more like Judaism.! Like 
Judaism, like Stoicism, it tends towards a cosmopolitanism. 
Who calls himself ‘‘catholic” calls himself ‘‘ universal,” 
whoever bears this title is placed, as God is, in a category 
where there is no further distinction of kingdoms or races.” 

This sentiment, this ecclesiastical sense, this love of un- 
animity in catholicity, is a historical energy which is in full 
activity at the time of the baptismal controversy. If the 
Christians of subsequent ages forgave St. Cyprian his errors 
on many points, it was because no one before him, not even 
St. Irenezeus, had spoken as he did of the unanimity of the 
Church and of concord among bishops. The controversy he 
had stirred up concerning the validity of the baptism of 
heretics might still remain open, and seem undecided to 
many bishops; but the subordination of such disagreements 
to the duty of remaining united, and the realization of the 
absolutely sacred and imperative character of this duty was 
above all—“salvo wre communionis diversa sentire,’ St. 
Augustine will say later—was strong enough to end all con- 
flicts, in the time of Cyprian as in that of Ireneus. It is 
surprising that the Protestant critics take so little notice of 
this historical energy which is, not only a great idea—ideas 
are cold and silent—but a profound and heartfelt sentiment 
springing from the Christian faith. 

Hence the baptismal controversy served to manifest in 
Catholicism its theoretical and living unity. It recalled also 
its Apostolic, and therefore legitimate, origin. The Roman 
primacy alone seems at first sight to have come out of the 
conflict somewhat weakened as compared with what it was 
at the end of the second century. 

When, indeed, Gallicans and Josephists seek some 
authority behind which to shield themselves, they may ap- 
peal to the Bishop of Carthage.’ Anglicans and Old Ca- 


1 We may remember that the Christians appear to the Romans to be 
a race, like the Jews. Celsus says διὰ τὸ ἰουδαίων καὶ χριστιανῶν γένος. 
OrIGEN, ‘‘ Contra Celsum,” Iv. 23. 

* Minot. ‘‘ Octav.” 33. 

5 BossuEt, ‘‘Defensio declar. cleri gallicani,” 1x. 3-8, especially 4: 
‘*Sancti Stephani papae contra rebaptizationem decretum, tota Sedis 
apostolicae auctoritate factum, et tamen concilii generalis sententiam 
merito expectatam.” Dupin, ‘‘De antiqua Ecclesiae disciplina”’ (Paris, 


Le Ae a ψο αφοψ. 


ST. CYPRIAN AND ROME 401 


tholics will vie with one another in citing the unguarded 
expressions of St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian in their conflict 
with Pope Stephen, and in extolling the irritated independ- 
ence of these ‘‘ primitive saints”’ in their dealings with the 
See of Rome.! 

But this is to forget that at a more serene epoch Cyprian 
had recognized (1) that ‘‘a special importance attaches to 
the Roman see, because it is the see of the Apostle to whom 
in the first place Christ granted apostolic authority, thereby 
to show with unmistakable clearness the unity of this au- 
thority and the unity of the Church that rests on it; and 
(2) that, in the history of Christian Origins, the Church 
of this see was the Mother and root of the Catholic Church 
spread over the earth. In a difficult crisis which Cyprian 
had to pass through in his diocese [οἱ Carthage] he appealed 
to the Roman Church, to the Bishop of Rome, as if com- 
munion with this Church was in itself the guarantee of 
truth.” 2 Conditioned by such a primacy the concordia 
episcoporwm is no longer Gallicanism. ‘That bishop does 
not ignore the traditional Roman fact, who tells us that the 
Emperor Decius, ‘‘ tyrannus infestus sacerdotibus,” would 
have preferred to “‘ hear that a rival claimant to his empire 
had been proclaimed at Rome than that a bishop had been 
elected there, in the person of Cornelius:* he does not 
ignore the traditional Roman fact, who speaks on one occa- 


1686), p. 344. Frprontus, ‘“‘ De Statu Ecclesiae et de legitima Potestate 
Romani Pontificis,” cap. vi. § 9. DédrimeeEr, ‘‘ La Papauté” (Paris, 
1904), p. 3. 

1See Rernkens, ‘‘Die Lehre des heiligen Cyprian von der Einheit 
der Kirche” (Wurzburg, 1873), pp. 28-48. Lanern, ‘‘ Geschichte der 
rémischen Kirche,” vol. 1. (Bonn, 1881), pp. 333-46. Ligutroot, ‘‘ Chris- 
tian Ministry,” p. 96. Putter, ‘The Primitive Saints and the See of 
Rome,” third ed. (London, 1900), pp. 49-72. Gorz, ‘‘ Roman Catholic 
Claims,” sixth ed. (London, 1897), pp. 117-9. 

*Harnack, ‘‘ Dogmeng.” vol. τ΄, p. 420. Cf. Loors, p. 209. 

5ΟὝΡΕΙΑΝ, “‘ Kpistula,” Lv. 9: ‘*... sedisse intrepidum Romae in 
sacerdotali cathedra eo tempore cum tyrannus infestus sacerdotibus Dei 

. multo patientius et tolerabilius levari adversus se aemulum prin- 
cipem quam constitui Romae Dei sacerdotum”. Harnack, ‘‘ Mission,” 
vol, m. p. 211. Recall too the fact of Aurelian who, at Antioch in 
the year 272, makes the bishops of Italy and of Rome the arbiters of 
ecclesiastical legitimacy. Eusmp. ‘‘ H. EB.” vin. 31. 


26 


402 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


sion of that ‘ecclesia principalis unde unitas sacerdotalis 
exorta est,’ and of the see of Rome as the place of Peter, 
‘““locus Petri”. This was the language of tradition: Iren- 
gus would have recognized in it his own declarations. 
Would Pope Victor or Pope Callistus have thought that 
Pope Stephen was introducing a novelty, when, as the vicar 
of the Apostle Peter, he claimed to be the bishop of bishops 
in the Church of Churches? 


GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. 


WHEN, on the morrow of the peace of Constantine, the 
Fathers of the Church looked back upon the three centuries 
it had taken for Christianity to conquer the world, they could 
not help seeing evidence of God’s intervention in the rapidity 
with which this conquest had been effected. 

Modern historians have likewise been impressed by this 
rapid conquest: ‘‘ Seventy years after the foundation of the 
first Gentile Church in Syrian Antioch,” writes one of 
these historians, ‘“‘ Pliny wrote to Trajan concerning the 
spread of Christianity through remote Bithynia; where in 
his judgment it threatened the stability of the old pagan 
cults of the province. Seventy years later still, the paschal 
controversy reveals the existence of a Christian federation of 
Churches, stretching from Lyons to Edessa, with its head- 
quarters at Rome. Seventy years later again the HKmperor 
- Decius declared he would sooner see a rival claimant to his 
throne spring up at Rome than a new bishop to fill the see 
there that was then vacant. And ere another seventy years 
had passed, the cross was attached to the Roman colours.” 

Such a conquest of the old world had been attempted by 
Judaism. But, as we have learned from Origen, Judaism 
was a people by its race and by its law. When they spread 
among the heathen the fear and worship of Yahweh, the 
Jews continued to affirm that ‘‘ righteousness’? could be 
reached only through the perfect observance of the whole 
Law, beginning with circumcision: the Greek, to become a 
member of God’s people, must become a Jew. As to Jewish 
Hellenism, it could indeed present itself as a “‘ philosophy,” 
but by that very fact it became a synthesis of incompatibles 
without a future. 

The true essence of Christianity, its divine originality, 
manifested itself from its very beginning, in that it was 

403 26 * 


404 PRIMITIVE§CATHOLICISM 


neither a “‘ philosophy,” nor a people, but a revelation and 
a Church. Christianity was the preaching by Jesus of a 
kingdom of God, not an apocalyptic kingdom of God, but a 
kingdom that was at once interior and transcendent, a king- 
dom revealed by Jesus and thrown open by Him. Christi- 
anity was a faith and a life. Jesus was the truth and the 
way, and it immediately became manifest that this truth 
was from God, and that in this way the disciples walked not 
as sheep without a shepherd, but, on the contrary, as a flock 
that follows its leader. The disciples were the ‘ called” 
(κλητοῖ), the flock they made up was the ἐκκλησία. After 
Jesus had gone back to His Father, there was to be a shep- 
herd to feed the sheep and the lambs: on Peter the Church 
would be built. To the gospel of the kingdom, was added 
the gospel of the fold. For the law of God was substituted 
the kingdom of God; for the people of God, a people of 
‘flesh and blood,” was substituted a supernatural and social 
communion, freed from every idea of race, the visible and 
universalist Church of God. All this was announced and 
established by Jesus. 

Kcclesiology demands of us no sacrifice of soteriology: 
we distinguish the kingdom from the Church, we distinguish 
the Church from Redemption. Faith and baptism intro- 
duced the believer into a supernatural condition which made 
him a member of one and the same mystical, invisible body: 
he was reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus Christ, he 
was cleansed from his sins, he lived less himself than Christ 
lived in him, he was a new creature made for life eternal. 
But this interior justification would have left the Christian 
perfectly isolated in the world, for of itself it did not imply 
an exterior socialization, a flock and a shepherd. 

The preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles had, on the 
other hand, the result of everywhere forming the Chris- 
tians into visible and organized Christian communities, into 
brotherhoods in which there were no more Jews, or Greeks, 
Scythians, or slaves, but in which Jesus was all inall. The 
Christians were brothers by a brotherhood which was super- 
natural indeed, but was also immediately social. Individual- 
ism was never the law of the Christian religion. 

Outside the Apostolic generation and in the course of 


GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 405 


the three first centuries, it is a notable fact that the propa- 
gation of Christianity was not the work of missionaries. St. 
Paul, carrying the Gospel into Cyprus, into Galatia, into 
Macedonia, into Achaia, perhaps into Spain, is the Apostle 
par excellence, but he will have no imitators in the genera- 
tions which follow the Apostolic generation. The successors 
of the Apostles are not missionaries, but the bishops. 
Henceforth Christianity advances gradually and obscurely, 
propagating itself step by step, along the great Roman ways. 
There is, for instance, no historical record of the evangeliza- 
tion of Roman Africa, or of that of Great Britain. Tertullian 
and Cyprian, who probably remembered the details connected 
with the Christian conquest of Africa—details that are un- 
known to us—conceived the propagation of Christianity as a 
kind of genealogy of Churches, a mother Church bringing 
forth other Churches which became her spiritual daughters. 
In truth, wherever Christianity established itself definitively, 
it established itself in this way: the spread of the Gospel 
was a multiplication of Churches, like to the prolification of 
cells. 

However, the multiplication of Churches, unlike that of 
synagogues, was limited: it was subordinate to the law that 
there was to be only one Church in each city. Origen will 
most justly dwell upon the analogy between the local Church 
and the city. If there were for a while and among the 
‘first fruits ’’—in the words of St. Paul—domestic Churches, 
these temporary institutions, which answered a temporary 
need, soon disappear altogether from history. St. Cyprian, 
and long before him, St. Ignatius, proclaims the law of the 
unity of the Church in each city. All these local Churches 
have the same hierarchical structure: the collectivity of the 
faithful, and over them, as a ruling authority, one presby- 
tervum, one bishop. Even supposing that it took some time 
for the monarchical episcopate—as it is called—to find its 
explicit form, still it remains true that this term was reached 
by all the Churches during the second century. Whatever 
analogies may be found between the civil offices in the cities 
of the Empire, and the ordo of the Churches, what char- 
acterizes the ecclesiastical hierarchy is the fact that it 15 not 
an elective and temporary magistracy, but a priesthood for 


406 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


life. The hierarchy did not depend on the charisms, or ex- 
traordinary gifts of the Spirit: it was a power inherited 
from the apostolate, a living magistervwm which continued 
that of the Apostles. 

One Church in each city, one bishop in each Church, all 
the Churches joined together by a constant exchange of 
guests and letters, of helps and warnings, all forming a 
species of confederacy, all firmly rooted in this unity by 
their intimate sentiment of unity. Yet it was not these 
facts and conditions which produced the unity of hierarchical 
structure, or the fundamental unity of faith, worship and 
discipline: we do indeed find traces of efforts made to defend 
this fourfold unity ; but of efforts made to create it, there is 
no trace whatever. The circumstances which since Ritschl 
have been cited as having produced it account for it only by 
begging the question. On the contrary, that actual condi- 
tion of the facts is easily explained if each Church, proceed- 
ing from a mother-Church by spiritual filiation preserved an 
inherited tradition which imposed upon her her hierarchy, 
faith, liturgy, and discipline. 

From all these characteristic notes, we must conclude 
that Christianity spread and established itself as a “‘ religion 
of authority”. It was not a contagion of enthusiasm, such 
as may be found in certain “‘ revivals,” an outpouring of the 
ον of the Spirit, of prophecies and extraordinary ways; 
these charismatic manifestations were from the first subject 
to strict control, as much as if they had taken place in 
Jewish synagogues. The right to heresy existed no more 
for the Christian in his Church than for the Jew in his 
synagogue. Heretics were separated from the Christian 
community, just as public sinners were separated. The 
faithful ordered their belief and their conduct according to 
what had been received: what was new and not in agree- 
ment with what had been received, could only be foreign, 
and mere ‘‘ tradition of men”. But there was a tradition of 
God. 

In spite of Renan’s expression, repeated by Harnack, 
it was not mediocrity which in Christianity founded author- 
ity; it was the Gospel which founded authority. Men be- 
came converts on hearing the words of the Apostles sent by 


GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 407 


Jesus ; the words of Jesus and of the Apostles, continuing 
the words of the prophets, were the words of God, as his 
Law was for a Jew. And as the words of the Lord and of 
the Apostles were not at first set down in writing, tradition 
became authoritative before the new Scripture. Thus there 
was a sacred inheritance, the content of which was the 
message of God. When the presbyters of the second cen- 
tury said in simple humility to the heretics, whose subtlety 
was on a par with their inventiveness: ‘“‘ We repeat what 
we have learned,” they expressed the authentic and primitive 
conception of the Christian faith—which was never a ‘‘religion 
of the free spirit,’ but was carefully preserved as a deposit. 

The religious map of the old world, could one hope to 
delineate it throughout with the degree of completeness 
which is possible for some regions,—for the province of Asia, 
for instance—would reveal most striking contrasts. The 
regional differentiations, which are so conspicuous in the 
pagan religions, are also strongly marked in Gnosticism, in 
which it is easy to distinguish the Syrian variety from the 
Alexandrine, the Asiatic from the Roman: Gnosticism is 
indeed a typical. instance of a perpetually changing syncre- 
tism, assimilating to itself elements as various as are the 
countries where it prevails, and the men by whom it is 
taught. Montanism itself, although it came comparatively 
late and was influenced by the Catholic atmosphere far more 
than Gnosticism, is not the same everywhere: the Montan- 
ism of Phrygia differs from that of Africa. 

Christianity, on the contrary, shows itself endowed with 
a prodigious homogeneity. Unlike Mithraism, it is not a 
religion for a special class of men, since it is propagated in 
all classes and is embraced by the slave Onesimus as well as 
by the ex-consul Flavius Clemens. It is true, most of its 
adherents belong to the humble and illiterate class, to the 
tenurores and simpliciores. In the province of Bithynia, 
the refined mind of Pliny sees in these converts of all ages 
and conditions, and of both sexes, ‘‘nothing, except a de- 
praved and excessive superstition’’; and this is what it 
must have appeared everywhere to men similarly prejudiced. 
The wonder is that, sinking as it did so deeply into the 
souls of the pagan multitudes, it did not become corrupt, by 


408 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


syncretizing with the errors denounced in the Epistle to the 
Colossians, or in the message to the seven Churches, of the 
Apocalypse. 

On the contrary, the greater the danger appears, the 
stricter does vigilance make itself felt in every Church. The 
Churches are armed and ready to defend the purity of the 
faith, just as they are to defend the purity of morals: in 
either case, the same strictness; the virginity of the Church 
depends on this two-fold continence. The faith which was 
the same everywhere met the Christian to whatever Church 
he went, as in the cases of Abercius, Hegesippus and Papias. 
In each Church, the ruling authority made each one of the 
faithful, not the disciple of a school, but the soldier of an 
army; he was bound by a pledge which was similar to the 
sacramentum or military oath, and he pledged himself both 
as to his belief and as to his conduct, of which he must 
always be ready to give an account to his Church and to its 
rulers. In all this, there is neither constraint nor oppres- 
sion, for the profound reason that the faith implied such a 
unanimity, and that for a Christian to break away from it 
was a sign that he was abandoning faith and truth and 
salvation, to become a child of Satan. 

This unanimity in each Church and among the Churches 
was rendered possible only by the control of an authority 
which was in the ‘ presbyters,’’ as they were called. The 
‘‘ presbyters ’’ maintained the inherited tradition, the doc- 
trinal and ethical catechisms that had been formed from the 
beginning, the ‘‘dogmas”’ of the Lord and of the Apostles. 
They cared little for the ‘‘ persuasive words of human wis- 
dom’’; they claimed at most to give “‘ interpretations of the 
sayings of the Lord”. Papias, amongst others, is a typical 
“presbyter” of the second century. When the great 
Gnostics, like Valentinus, made their appearance, the ‘‘ pres- 
byters,”’ distributed as they were from Edessa to Lyons, 
did not need to meet together and concert plans; for a 
long time past the Christian community in every Church 
had known how to protect itself against the assaults of ‘ false 
knowledge”’ and the ‘‘ profane novelties of words”. Had 
she not been thus protected, what would have remained 
of her even as early as the years 100 or 120? 


GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 409 


About the year 200, this homogeneity of Christianity in 
its hierarchical structure, in its faith, in its liturgy, and in 
the discipline of its Churches, extended to all the provinces 
of the Roman Empire, and even went beyond its boundaries 
on the East. The Churches and the “ presbyters”’ had 
subdued the old world to a faith which, having been carried 
and established as far as the extremities of the inhabited 
world as then known, rightly deserved the title Catholic, 
which it had borne for almost a century. The words of 
Paul had been fulfilled: God had chosen the foolish things 
of the world that He might confound the wise, and the 
weak things of the world that He might confound the 
strong. By using the criterion of tradition, and invoking 
prescription against novelty, the ‘‘ presbyters”’ had preserved 
the Churches from the baneful syncretisms that threatened 
them at the end of the Apostolic age and during the second 
century. The homogeneity itself of the faith of the Churches, 
the uninterrupted succession which connected that faith 
through the bishops with the Apostles, the assistance of the 
Holy Ghost promised by Jesus to the Apostles, these formed 
the threefold justification of the claims of Catholicism. 

But there were further questions still demanding solution. 
Had not the Spirit a mission to suggest new revelations ? 
Unquestionably another Gospel than that of the Apostles 
could not be thought of: but could not some new prophets 
arise? The Churches fixed the canon of the New Testa- 
ment, by settling the hesitations entertained here and there 
about the canonicity of such or such an apostolic or prophetic 
book. It shows the rigour with which they proceeded in 
this work that a certain number of writings, like the 
“‘Didaché”’ which was highly esteemed at Alexandria, or 
the ‘‘Shepherd” which was held in great esteem at Rome, 
were kept out of the canon. When, in the time of Mon- 
tanism, some new prophecies claimed credit in the name of 
the Spirit, the principle that revelation was closed universally 
prevailed. 

But at least could not the canon of faith be expounded 
by some process of dialectics? For Irenseus and Tertullian 
Greek philosophy was simply a worldly and dangerous 
sophistry: the use made of this philosophy by the great 


410 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Gnostics, could not but predispose the Churches against it. 
Some apologists, however, like Justin, appealed to it, with 
the object of accrediting the Christian faith in the eyes 
of the heathen public. Clement of Alexandria and Origen 
accepted, and—not without meeting with some opposition— 
succeeded in getting the Churches to accept the idea that 
philosophical propeedeutics might be a fitting preparation 
for the faith, and that the revealed faith might mature 
into an ecclesiastical gnosis. Philosophical apologetics and 
deductive theology thus became acclimatized on the Christian 
soil, just as later on, in the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, 
the Aristotelian philosophy, for which Tertullian has any- 
thing but words of praise, was to be acclimatized. Chris- 
tians entered, not without some regret, upon these paths of 
discussion. It remained at least beyond question that the 
canon of the faith was the standard by which every thought 
had to be judged, and that the ecclesiastical gnosis was the 
legitimate gnosis. 

The ecclesiastical rule of the faith was manifested by 
the unanimity of the Churches and of the bishops: that on 
which all Christians agreed in the whole world could not but 
be a tradition inherited from the Apostles. The authenticity 
of the tradition was confirmed by the fact that in the “ prin- 
cipal’’ Churches the succession of bishops was connected 
with the Apostles who had founded those Churches. Among 
these Churches of Apostolic origin, the most illustrious was 
the one founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome, 
where their tombs were preserved. The Bishop of Rome 
was the successor, not of Peter and Paul, but of Peter alone: 
he held the place of the latter, he was sitting in his chair. 
The witness of the Roman Church in matters of faith had 
as much weight as the witness of the whole Catholic world. 

It was a fact, both in Greek Christendom in the time 
of Origen, and in Latin Christendom, that before the age 
of Cyprian, bishops were looked upon as the judges of the 
faith and the arbiters of controversies, and the Bishop of 
Rome was recognized as possessing a sovereignty, which no 
other bishop denied him. In the affair of Montanism, both 
the opponents of Montanism and the Montanists themselves 
asked his decision: in the affair of the Quartodecimans, the 


GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 411 


Bishop of Rome intimated orders to the whole Christian 
world. We have for the second century, the testimony of 
Ignatius and of Irenzus. 

These facts and these texts do not constitute, it is true, 
the whole history of the Papacy; but, as by sudden flashes 
they light up the life of the Christian community and re- 
veal to us the place which the cathedra Petri, as such, held 
in that life. The consciousness which Popes lke Callistus 
and Stephen during the third century, had of this was not 
an innovation or a usurpation, but a tradition which had 
come down from the promise made to Peter by the Saviour 
Himeelf. 

The rapidity with which Christianity was propagated 
during the first three centuries, and that under the pressure 
of the imperial persecutions, is not then the only fact that 
should make the historian wonder: the internal and organic 
development of Christianity is still more wonderful. Far 
from being, as is claimed by Protestant historians, a series of 
crises and transformations that could only have brought forth 
differentiations and dislocations, Christendom shows itself to 
be a catholicity, a unity, a homogeneity ; it is such in the 
year 200, and in the year 250, after an existence of two 
centuries. The monarchical episcopate has none of the 
features of a successful coup d’Etat; the Roman primacy 
has none of the features of a high-handed conquest; the 
unanimity of the Churches has none of the features of a 
slow and painful labour, with organized endeavours, suc- 
cesses, and. reverses. Neither the Roman Church nor any 
other Church was the chief artificer of this unity. The 
same must be said of the Roman primacy: the evidences of 
its existence come to us in the form of acknowledgments of 
it by others more often than as claims set up by Rome. 
After being extolled during the second century, it did not 
escape being gainsaid during the third; and even then—as 
when she sent to Corinth the letter of St. Clement—Rome 
did not plead her own right which she knew to be divine: 
she exercised it. Catholicism grew like a tree (the com- 
parison goes back to St. Paul) which expands in keeping 
with the law of its nature, under the continued assistance 
of God Himself, by whom it had been planted. 


412 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Many a woodman has impiously raised his axe against 
the branches of this great tree; many a storm has passed 
over it, since the times of Clement and of Stephen; but it 
is still erect in its rugged strength. Now, as in the days of 
Treneus and Ignatius, the Roman Church, the heart of 
the “great Church” survives uninjured; but how many 
Churches have been for centuries separated from her, how 
many sheep have been lost! The historian cannot think 
over these losses without emotion, when he remembers the 
nascent and conquering catholicity of the first three cen- 
turies. The present work would not have been written— 
especially at the painful hour when I wrote it—did I not be- 
lieve this history of the origins capable of arousing in the 
separated Churches a yearning for unity, and giving to 
churchless Christians an intuition of the true faith. 


INDEX. 


ABERCIUS (inscription), the Roman/| Apostolate, 


Church in second century, 175-178; 
“The Spotless Virgin,” 177, 178. 
Aeschylus, apocryphal texts attributed 

to, in interests of Judaism, 7. 
Africa, Council of (256), 399; proceed- 
ings of, in election and deposition of 
bishops, 375, 376. 
African Church, the, excommunicated 
by Pope Stephen, 395. 
Allegorical method, used by Philo, 8. 
Alms-giving, character of, in primitive 


Christianity, 31, 32; primitive 
Christian, an inheritance from 
Judaism, 31. 


Ananias, conversion of Izatis by, 15. 

Anastasius Sinaita, on Pantzenus, 179, 
181. 

“ Anathema,” origin of term, 29, 30. 

‘ Angels” of the Seven Churches, 120, 
122. 

Anicetus, dispute of, with St. Polycarp 
on the Haster Question, 169, 170, 
220. 

Antigonus of Socho and the Pharisaic 
Tradition, 9. 

Antioch, Council of, condemnation of 
Paul of Samosata by, 328; ‘‘ pillars” 
of the Christian community at, 57. 

Apocalypse, the Johannine, 119, 120. 

Apostle, Jewish, St. Paul as, 39. 

“ Apostle,’’ meaning of term, 37, 39; 
Pauline use of term, 40, 41. 

Apostles, function of, the “ Didaché”’ 
on, 109. 

Apostles, the Jewish, 37-9; attempt of, 
to undermine Christianity, Huse- 
bius on, 37, 38; St. Justin Martyr 
on, 38. 

“Apostles,” term applied to the 
Seventy by St. Ireneus and Ter- 
tullian, 41. 

Apostles, the twelve, authority of, St. 
Ignatius on, 138; decree of in Acts 
XV., XX., XXII., 60; equality of, St. 
Cyprian on, 358; as foundation of 
the Church, St. Paul on, 101; pre- 
eminent authority of, in the primi- 
tive Church, 41, 42, 53, 54; and the 
Judaizers, 60. 


the, Catholic idea of, 
origins of, 52; not a charisma, 
xix; distinctly Christian character 
as institution of, 37, 39; Harnack 
on, 39. 

Apostolic Succession, 410; St. Cyprian 
on, 335. 

Apostolic Tradition, 409; Clement of 
Alexandria on, 251; ‘‘ Hipistle to 
Diognetus” on, 180, 181; Hegesip- 
pus on, 173, 174; appeal of Papias 
to, 172, 173. 

Aristo’s “" Dialogue of Jason,’’ 241. 

Aristobulus, on the Greek philosophers 
as disciples of Moses, 7. 

Arrian, on the conditions of becoming 
a proselyte, 12. 

Asceticism, Christian, Origen on, 304. 

“ Atheism,” Christianity regarded as, 
by the Pagans, 18. 

Aurelian, the Roman primacy recog- 
nized by, 329. 

Aurelius the martyr, St. Cyprian on, 
338. 


Baptism, Christian, formula of, in the 
* Didaché,” 107; ‘‘Clementis Se- 
cunda’’ on, 182-4; forgiveness of 
sins after, Hippolytus on, 288; St. 
Justin Martyr on, 189; nature of, 
67; ex opere operato efficacy of, Pope 
Stephen on, 397; as a “seal,” 177. 

Baptism, heretical: validity of, Pope 
Stephen on, 387, 389, 390, 392; in- 
validity of, Council of Carthage on, 
381-6; St. Cyprian on, 383, 384, 387, 
396, 397. 

Baptism, Jewish, administered to pro- 
selytes, 11; necessity of, to becom- 
ing a pyroselyte, ‘‘ Jebamoth” on, 
12; as ‘a bath of levitical cleans- 
ing,” “‘Gerim ” on, 12. 

Bigg, on ecclesiastical attitude of 
Clement of Alexandria, 263. 

‘ Binding and loosing,” force of terms 
in Rabbinical language 90, 91. 

Bishop, monarchical, the first known, 
122. 

Bishop of Rome, the, as Bishop of 
Bishops, Tertullian on, 288, 290; as 


413 


414 


Pontifex Maximus, Tertullian on, 
288, 289. 

Bishops. See under ‘“ Hpiscopate”’ 
and ‘‘ Hierarchy ”’; first mention of, 
in Christian literature, 98; councils 
of, Origen on powers of, 322, 344- 
346; dignity of, ‘‘ De Aleatoribus”’ 
on, 362; election of, St. Cyprian on, 
335, 347, 348; election of, the 
“*Didaché”’ on, 107, 108; right of 
laity to choose, St. Cyprian on, 377 ; 
equality of, St. Cyprian on, 362; as 
guardians of the Deposit of Faith, 
vii; as guardians of Scripture, 
Origen on, 321; of heretical bodies, 
163; the Holy Sacrifice offered by, 
336; Pagan and Christian, their in- 
dependent origin, 98; ‘‘ Pope,” title 
given to all, 290; succession of, in 
Jerusalem Church, Hegesippus on, 
175; successors of the Apostles, 393, 
405; unworthy, power of orders not 
lost by—so Pope Callistus, 378; lost 
by—so St. Cyprian, 377, 378. 

Bishops of Africa, the, St. Cyprian’s 
primacy over, 345; of Jerusalem, the, 
Kusebius on, 239, 240; of Palestine, 
the, in synod condemn the Quarto- 
decimans, 240. 

Bishops of Rome, the, succession of, 
from St. Peter, St. Irenzus on, 
203; verified by Hegesippus, 174; 
successors of St. Peter, 411; author- 
ity of, attacked by Tertullian, 288, 
289; significance of Tertullian’s 
attack on authority of, 290. 

Bousset, on Judaism in New Testa- 
ment times, 1; on the transforma- 
tion of Judaism into the Church, 1. 

Burial Clubs and Christianity, De 
Rossi on, 34. 


CaLListus Popr, on the Christian 
Hierarchy, 294; on Christ’s promise 
to St. Peter as justifying the Roman 
Primacy, 291; Tertullian’s polemic 
against, 288, 290, 291. 

Canon of the New Testament, fixed by 
the Church, 400. 

Canon of the Old Testament, inquiries 
of Hegesippus into, 173; inquiries 
of Papias into, 173. 

Canon, the, principles of, in ‘Cle- 
mentis Prima,” 126. 

Canon of Scripture, the, Origen on, 
511. 

Canon of Scripture, Marcion’s, 235, 
236. 

Carthage, Council of, 344, 345, 356, 
357, 373, 376; on validity of hereti- 
cal baptism, 381, 383, 384, 386. 


PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Carthage, third Council of, its reply 
to Pope Stephen, 391. 

Carthaginian Church, the, officials of, 
in time of St. Cyprian, 337. 

Catholicism, antiquity of, Harnack 
on, xxiii; attitude of Hegesippus 
towards, 241; conception of, St. 
Treneus’, 216; formation of, accord- 
ing to Protestant writers generally, 
144; formation of, Ritschlian theory 
of, 237; formation of, Sabatier on, 
145-63; fundamentals of, acquired 
by end of second century, 228; 
heresy as posterior to, Clement of 
Alexandria on, 260, 261; imperialist 
conception of, 228; not of Roman 
origination, 229, 230; role of Rome 
in genesis of, Renan on, 157. 

Catholicism, primitive, more like pri- 
mitive Christianity than Protestant- 
ism, according to Harnack, x; re- 
semblance of, to Judaism, 1. 

‘‘Catholic,” use of term in Classical 
and Patristic Literature, 1389; term 
first applied to the Church by St. 
Ignatius, 170; identical with 
“ Roman,”’ Harnack on, viii. 

Celsus, ‘‘True Discourse” of, 193-6; 
Origen on, 193; on the character of 
Christians, 195; attack of, on Chris- 
tians for forming unlawful associa- 
tions, 36, 194; on the unity of the 
Church, 196; on the Gnostics, 194, 
196; on the disputable books. of 
Scripture, 247. 

Cemeteries, the faithful buried in the 
same, 342. ; 

‘“‘ Cepha,” use of word in the Targums, 
Hart on, 85. 

Chapman, Dom, on editions of De 
Unitate Hcclesi@, 371-2. 

Charisma, the Apostolate not a, xix; 
of prophecy, prominent in primitive 
Christianity, 29. 

Charismata, abundance of, in primi- 
tiva Christianity, 29; authority of 
the Church the outcome of the evo- 
lution of—so Sohm, xx; ‘“Cle- 
mentis Prima ’’ on, 123; criteria of, 
68 ; not always due to supernatural 
revelation, 29; ‘Petri Prima” on, 
113; St. Paul on, 29,30; Renan on, 
150; Sabatier on, 150, 151; pro- 
phetic, St.'Justin Martyr on, 219; 
prophetic, St. Irenzus on, 219. 

“Charismatic anarchy,” primitive 
Christianity not a, xxii. 

Charismatic element in the primitive 
Church, subordinate to authority, 
Xviii. 

‘‘Christian,’’ origin and significance 


INDEX 415 


of name, 56; name applied by the 
Jews and Pagans, 56. 

Christians, the, charged with the 
burning of Rome, 20; accused of 
unnatural crimes by the Pagans, 
25; mutual love of, the Pagans im- 
pressed by, 31; persecution of, 
under Decius, 341, 350, 356; per- 
secution of, under Domitian, 26; 
persecution of, under Nero, 17, 20; 
persecution of, by Pliny the younger, 
22; probity of, in Bithynia, Pliny 
on, 22, 25; solidarity and duties of, 
St. Paul on, 68, 69; “8. third race,” 
74, 

Christianity, apostolic, character of, 
vi, vii; as ‘pneumatic anar- 
chism,’’ Harnack on, xiv; sources 
of authority in, Harnack on, xv. 
Christianity, beginnings of, Tacitus 
on, 17; as a “catechesis,” 64; 
“born Catholic,” vii; social char- 
acter of, in Bithynia, 23; growth of 
testimony to the divine character 
of, 411; definition of, Tertullian’s, 
vi; of Edessa, 229; as taught by 
Jesus, 404; Judseeo—two kinds dis- 
tinguished, 242, 243; Jewish origin 
of, Sulpicius Severus on, 21; con- 
founded with Judaism by the Roman 
State before 64, 8, 18, 19; when 
first distinguished from Judaism, 
17, 28; detachment of, from the 
jewries, 34; Jewish tendencies in 
the earliest, 55; profession of, when 
first forbidden by Roman legislation, 
22, 25; a “yeligio illicita,” 35, 36; 
wide and rapid spread of, in 
Bithynia, 22; unity and homo- 
geneity of, 408, 409. 

Christianity, primitive, character of 
almsgiving in, 31, 32; character of, 
36; character of, Tacitus on, 17, 20; 
not a ‘‘pneumatic anarchy’’—so 
Sohm, xviii; regarded as ‘‘athe- 
ism” by the Pagans, 18; a brother- 
hood from the start, 31; abundance 
of charismata in, 29; not commun- 
istic, 31; and the collegia, difference 
between, 33-5; local organizations 
of, Harnack on, 153. 

Church, the, as a social brotherhood 
in time of St. Cyprian, 341, 342; 
Canon of the New Testament fixed 
by, 400; character of, Jesus on the 
lasting, visible and spiritual, 80; 
corruption of morals in, Origen on, 
299, 303; exercise of excommunica- 
tion by, Origen on, 298 ; beginnings 
of, in the Gospels, Loisy on, 76; 
attitude of Gnosticism to, 210, 211; 


hierarchical basis of, St. Cyprian on, 
349; origin of idea of, Loisy on, 76; 
Kingdom of God, not identical with, 
76; as a living magisterium, Origen 
on, 313; teaching of St. Matthew on, 
Wellhausen on, 83, 87; organiza- 
tion of, in the sub-apostolic age, 142; 
organization and worship of, the 
‘‘Didaché” on, 107, 110; Origen’s 
theory of, Harnack on, 307; powers 
granted by Christ to, Tertullian on, 
292 - as the one ark of salvation, St. 
Cyprian on, 359, 382; Synagogue, 
the, contrasted with, by Origen, 324; 
conception of, Tertullian’s, 128, 277; 
testimony of, to herself, Mohler on, 
144; transformation of Judaism, 
into, 4; unity and nature of, 405, 
406; unity of, recognized by Celsus, 
196; unity of, St. Cyprian on, 348, 
355, 358, 359, 363-5; unity of, 
Firmilian on, 394; unity of, St. 
Ignatius on, 133-5, 138, 1389; unity 
of, St. Irenzus on, 205-7, 216; 
unity and nature of, Origen on, 300, 
322-5; unity and nature of, St. 
Paul on, 101, 102; unity and con- 
stitution of, Petri Prima on, 112, 
113; source of unity of, Clementis 
Prima on, 123, 125 ; unity of, Her- 
mas on, 186; vision of, by Hermas, 
186, 187 ; origins of, Sohm’s theory, 
Harnack on, xvi, xix-xxi. 

‘“‘Church, concerning the,” Greek 
fragment entitled, 266. 

Church, Jerusalem, the succession of 
bishops in, Hegesippus on, 175; 
corruption of, by Thebutis, 175, 240. 

Church, the Pagan, contrasted with 
the Christian, by Origen, 323. 

Church, Palestinian, the, St. Matthew’s 
gospel, a work of, xiii, xiv, 81. 

Church, primitive, the, character of, 
Renan on, 150; part played by the 
Eipiscopate in, δά ; unity and solidar- 
ity of, Harnack on, 32. 

Church, Roman, the, testimony of 
Abercius to, 175-8; ‘‘ boundless 
charity of,” praised by Dionysius of 
Corinth, 185; officials of, in 251, 
Pope Cornelius on, 337; as the test 
of orthodoxy, St. Irenzeus on, 209, 
210; St. Peter the founder of, 203, 
362; as bond of union for other 
churches, St. Irenzeus on, 207-10, 
216; supremacy of, St. Irenzus on, 
207-10, 216; wealth of, 185. 

Church, significance of term in the 
LXX, 70, 86; in the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, 87; in St. Stephen’s 
speech in the Acts, 87; in the 


416 PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


“ς Didaché,” 110; as used by St. 
Paul, 70-3; Wellhausen on, 87. 

Churches, African, the, excommuni- 
cated by Pope Stephen, 395. 

Churches, Hastern, the, excommuni- 
cated by Pope Victor, 226, 227. 

Churches, Gentile, the organization and 
hierarchy of, in first century, 98, 99. 

Churches, Seven, the, ‘‘ Angels” of, 
120, 122. 

Claudius, expulsion of the Jews from 
Rome by, 18. 

Clement of Alexandria, date and life 
of, 246, 247; on baptism, 2538, 254; 
on the unity and universality of the 
Church, 255, 261, 262; onthe visible 
and invisible Church, 254; nature 
of Christianity of, E.de Faye on, 
257; ecclesiology of, Harnack on, 
246, 247; ecclesiology and theology 
of, 246-63; on the Heclesiastical 
Canon, 248-50; on the Keclesiastical 
Gnosis, 257, 258, 263; Ecclesiastical 
and Heretical Gnosis distinguished 
by, 259; on the “True Gnostic,” 
946, 259, 260; on Hcclesiastical 
Tradition, 258, 259; on heresy as 
posterior to Catholicism, 260, 261; 
on the Church as antithesis of 
heresy, 255-7; on the Church as the 
‘best heresy,” 287; on the powers 
and functions of the Christian 
Hierarchy, 251-3; Hypotyposes of, 
247; on Pantenus, 178, 179, 181; 
“ς Blessed Presbyter,” title of, 248 ; 
on the ‘“ Tradition of Presbyters,” 
248, 251; Stromata of, 250. 

Clementine Homilies and Recogni- 
tions, the, Waitz on source of, 243; 
date and character of, 248; Du- 
chesne on, 243. 

Clergy and laity distinguished in 
“Clementis Prima,’ 127; remun- 
eration of, by the Church, St. 
Cyprian on, 329; secular functions 
forbidden to, in time of St. Cyprian, 
338, 339. 

‘* Collegia,” the, Christianity different 
from, 33-6; Christianity modelled 
after, according to the Pagans, 33; 
different from the jewries in legal 
status, 34; severity of legislation 
for, 35. 

Cornelius the Centurion, visit of St. 
Peter to, 15. 

Cornelius, Pope, on the officials of the 
Roman Church in 251, 337; on the 
fraudulent ordination of Novatian, 
335. 

Cumont, on the Pagan worship of the 
“ Hlements,” 100-4. 


Deacon, see under “ Hierarchy ” ; 
election of, the “" Didaché ” on, 107, 
108. 

Decius, attitude of, towards the 
Roman See, 401, 403; persecution 
of the Christians by, 341, 350, 356. 

Deposit of Faith, entrusted by the 
Apostles to guardianship of bishops, 
vii; in the Pastoral Epistles, 114, 
110, 119. 

‘‘Didaché,”’ the, date and character 
of, 105-7; on the function of 
apostles, 109; on the formula of 
Baptism, 107; on the functions and 
powers of the Christian Hierarchy, 
107-9; on prophets, 109; on sub- 
ordination of individual inspiration 
to authority, 106. 

“Diognetus, Epistle to,” author of, 
179; theology of, 180, 181; on 
Apostolic Tradition, 180, 181. 

Dionysius of Alexandria, letter of, to 
Pope Stephen, 398; on policy of 
Pope Stephen, 396, 

Dionysius of Corinth, letter of, to 
Eusebius, 184. 

Diotrephes, first known monarchical 
bishop, 122. 

Dispersion, Jewish, the, centres of, 2. 

“Dispersion,” the, sole Christian use 
of term, 111. 

Docetism, condemnation of, by St. 
Ignatius, 134. 

Dogma, development of, Origen on, 
321. 

“Dogma,” primary significance of 
term, 136, 166, 167. ‘ 

Domitian, persecution of the Chris- 
tians by, 26. 

Duchesne, on Burial-Clubs under the 
Empire, 34; on authority of the 
Roman Church, as taught by St. 
Ignatius, 142; on the Church, 230; 
on the semi-canonical authority of 
“Clementis Prima,’ 187; on the 
Council of Africa, 375; on Marcion, 
230; on the Domitian persecution, 
26; on the Neronic persecution, 25, 
26; on ‘‘ The Shepherd” of Hermas, 
187. 


EBIonITES, the, not representative of 
primitive orthodoxy, 154. 

Edessa, Christianity of, 229. 

‘‘Hilements of the World,’’ meaning 
of Pauline phrase, 100. 

‘“‘ Hlements,” the, Pagan worship of, 
Cumont on, 100-4. 

Eliezer, Rabbi, on the conditions of 
becoming a proselyte, 12. 

Episcopate, the, see under ‘‘ Bishop” 


INDEX 


and “Hierarchy”; forfeited by 
penance, 345 ; originally plural, 54 ; 
identical with the presbyterate, 
Theodore of Mopsuestia on, 117; in 
the primitive Church, Sohm on, 54. 

Ethnarch, Jewish, the, in Egypt, func- 
tions of, 4. 

Eucharist, the, celebrated weekly, on 
Sunday, 67, 107; centre of new re- 
ligious life, 68; use of bread and 
water in, by heretics, 249. 

Eusebius, on the attempt of the 
Jewish apostles to undermine 
Christianity, 37, 38; on the bishops 
of Jerusalem, 239, 240; rebuked by 
Pope Julian for deposition of Athan- 
asius, 328; on the letters of Diony- 
sius of Corinth, 184; on Montanism, 
221; on Pantenus, 180. 

“ Evangelist,” original and later mean- 
ings of term, 51. 

Excommunicated, the, reconciliation 
of, 343, 844. 


ἘΆΒΙΑΝ, Bishop of Rome, letter of 
Origen to, defending his orthodoxy, 
328. 

Fast Days in the primitive Church, 
107. 

Felcissimus, the case of, and St. 
Cyprian, 353, 354, 356, 373-5. 

Firmilian, on the hierarchical char- 
acter of the Church, 393; on the 
unity of the Church, 394; invective 
of, against the Roman See, 392-5; 
on the invalidity of heretical sacra- 
ments, 393, 394. 

Fish, Jesus as the divine, 177, 178, 278. 

Florinus, letter of St. Irenzus to, 167. 

Fortunatianus, the case of, and St. 
Cyprian, 377. 


GALILEE, when annexed to Judea, 1. 

“‘Gerim,”’ on the initiation of a prose- 
lyte, 11; on Baptism as “ bath of 
levitical cleansing,”’ 12. 

“ Glossolalia,”’ 30. 

Gnosis, Hcclesiastical, Clement of 
Alexandria on, 257, 258; EHcclesi- 
astical and Heretical, distinguished 
by Clement of Alexandria, 259, 263. 

‘Gnostic, True,’ the, Clement of 
Alexandria on, 246, 259, 260. 

Gnosticism, character of, Harnack on, 
214; pre-Christian origin of, Light- 
foot on, 100; Hegesippus on, 175; 
historical significance of, 210; at- 
tacked in the Pastoral Epistles, 115 ; 
and the Symbol of the Apostles, 161. 

Gnostics, the, appeal to Apostolic 
Tradition rejected by, 213, 214; 


417 


Catholic attitude towards, 212; at- 
titude of, towards the Church, 210, 
211; Celsus on, 194, 196; doctrines 
of, 211-6; St. Irenzus on, 210-3; 
St. Justin Martyr on, 190-193; 
treatment of the Scriptures by, 212. 

Gore, on the ‘‘permanent process of 
ordination,’ 118. 

Gospel, the, character and credentials 
of, St. Paul on, 64, 66. 

Gospels, the Four, origin of, St. 
Irenezus on, 201; Origen on, 311; 
universalism in, 92-5. 


HARNACK, on sources of authority of 
Apostolic Christianity, xv; on the 
Christian Apostolate, 39; on the 
nature of the earliest Christian 
community, 77, 78; on the relations 
of Jewish Christian communities to 
the Church, 155; on local organiza- 
tions in primitive Christianity, 153 ; 
on the charismatic element in 
primitive Christianity, xviii; on 
the antiquity of Catholicism, 
xxiii; on the author’s “ Primitive 
Catholicism,” vili- xi; on Sohm’s 
theory of Church Origins, xvi, 
xix-xxi; on the unity and solid- 
arity of the primitive Church, 32; 
on the causes of the unity of the 
Church, 152; on the ecclesiology of 
Clement of Alexandria, 246, 247; on 
the character of Gnosticism, 214; 
on Marcion, 237; on the origin and 
character of St. Matthew’s Gospel, 
81, 82; on Origen’s theory of the 
Church, 307; on Origen’s Doctrine 
of Apostolic Succession, 311; on the 
Reformation, xxi; on ‘‘Roman” 
as identical with ‘‘ Catholic,” viii; 
on Roman Catholicism in Clementis 
Prima, xi; on the causes of Roman 
Primacy, 152; on the relations of 
the Eastern Churches with the 
Roman See, 329; on Pope Victor’s 
excommunication of the Hastern 
Churches, 226. 

Hasmoneans, the Jews under the, 4. 

Hebrews, the Epistle to the, on the 
character of the early preaching of 
Christianity, 29. 

Hebrews, the Gospel of the, 241-3; 
commentary of Symmachus on, 243. 

Hegesippus, inquiries of, into the 
“true tradition of Apostolic Doc- 
trine,” 173, 174; inquiries of, into 
the Canon of the Old Testament, 
173; attitude of, towards Catholi- 
cism, 241; succession of bishops of 
Rome verified by, 174; on succes- 


27 


418 


sion of bishops in Jerusalem 
Church, 175; on corruption of 
Church of Jerusalem, 175. 

Helbo, Rabbi, on _ proselytes 
Judaism, 17. 

Heraclitus, as a disciple of Moses, 7. 

“ Heresy,” origin and use of term, 
115; Jiilicher on term, 115. 

Heresy, sources and characteristics of, 
Tertullian on, 265-76, 279, 280 ; com- 
bated in the Apocalypse, 119, 120; 
combated in the Johannine Hpistles, 
121, 122; genealogy of, St. Irenzeus 
on, 215. 

Hermas, as Prophet and Visionary, 
218; ‘‘The Shepherd ” of, 186, 187 ; 
“ΠΡ Shepherd” of, forbidden to 
be read in Church, 285, 286; on 
pseudo-prophets, 218; on the unity 
of the Church, 186; his vision of the 
Church, 186, 187. 

< Heterodox, ” term first applied to 
heretics by Origen, 316. 

Hierarchical basis of the Church, St. 
Cypriau on, 349. 

Hierarchical idea, the, recognized by 
Tertullian, SS. Cyprian and Iren- 
zeus, 349. 

Hierarchy, the Christian, functions 
and powers of, 299-301, 303, 306, 
307; Pope Callistus on, 294; Cle- 
ment of Alexandria on, 251-3; 
“Clementis Prima’ on, 127, 128, 
129; ““ Clementis Secunda” on, 182; 
St. Cyprian on, 333-6, 338-47, 351, 
352; the ‘ Didaché”’ on, 107-9; the 
Ignatian Epistles, 132, 133, 135, 
136; Lightfoot on, 98; the Pastoral 
Epistles on, 117, 118, 119; Origen 


to 


PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


demnation of Docetism by, 134; on 
the Roman Primacy, 140-2. 

Irenzus, St., life and teaching of, 199- 
210; on Apostolic Tradition, 202, 
203 ; on the succession of the bishops 
of Rome from St. Peter, 203; Pro- 
testant theory of his role in the 
evolution of Catholicism, 164; on 
prophetic charismata, 219 ; on the 
nature of the Church, 205-7, 216; 
on the pre-eminence of the Roman 
Church, 207-10, 216; letter of, to 
Florinus, 167; on origin of the Four 
Gospels, 201; on the Gnostics, 210- 
213; on the genealogy of heretics, 
215; intervention of, in the Paschal 
Controversy, 227; on St. Polycarp’s 
relations with the Apostles, 204; re- 
lations of, with SS. John the Apostle 
and Polycarp, 167; on the Rule of 
Faith, 198, 199; letter of, to Pope 
Victor on the Easter Question, 169, 
227; Victor’s right of excommunica- 
tion not questioned by, 228. 

Izatis, conversion of, 15. 


“Jason, ΤΑ ΘΟΕ oF,’’ Aristo’s, 241. 
“ Jebamoth,” on the initiation of a 
proselyte, 11; on the necessity of 
baptism to becoming a proselyte, 


Jerusalem, destruction of, its influence 
on Christianity, 154, 155. 

Jewish community in Egypt, polity of, 
Strabo on, 4; communities, official 
names of, in inscriptions,4; cus- 
toms, penetration of heathen en- 
vironments by, 14; theocracy, 
character of, 5. 


on, 320, 321; Tertullian on, 279,| Jewries, legal status of, different from 


280 ; source of, 405, 406 ; Tertullian’s 
attack on, 286-8, 290, 291. 
aes and the Pharisaic Tradition, 


Hillel, School of, on the “unclean- 
ness” of Gentile proselytes, 13. 

Hippolytus, on the forgiveness of sins 
after Baptism, 288. 

Holtzmann, on the date of St. Mat- 
thew’s Gospel, 89; on the analysis 
of the Pastoral Epistles, 119. 

Homer, apocryphal texts attributed to, 
in the interests of Judaism, 7. 


Ipum@a, when annexed to Judea, 1 

Ignatian Epistles, the, v, 131-42; 
authenticity of, 158. 

Ignatius, St. on the authority of the 
Apostles, 138; use of term ‘‘ Catho- 
lic”? by, 170, 171; on the unity of 
the Church, 133-5, 188, 189; con- 


that of the collegia, 34. 

Jews, the, non-absorption of, in other 
peoples, reason of, 5; expulsion of, 
from Rome by Claudius, 18; expul- 
sion of, from Rome by Tiberius, 3; 
under Hasmonean rule, 4; hostility 
of, towards characteristic features of 
Pagan social life, 3; hostility of, 
towards foreigners, Tacitus on, 5; 
attitude of, towards idolatry, Pliny 
the Elder on, 3; monotheism and 
anti-idolatry of, Tacitus on, 13 ; legal 
privileges of, under the Empire, 3; 
aversion of, to mixed marriages, 3; 
the large numbers of, in Egypt in 
time of Philo, 2; ‘‘a race of philo- 
sophers,”’ 7. 

Johannine Epistles, the, heresy com- 
bated in, 121, 122. 

John the Presbyter, relations of, with 
Papias, 173. 


INDEX 


Josephus, on the theocratic character 
of the Jewish constitution, 5; on 
the wide vogue of the Sabbath in the 
Roman Empire, 14. 

Josua, Rabbi, on the conditions of be- 
coming a proselyte, 12. 

Jubaianus, letter of St. Cyprian to, on 
invalidity of heretical baptism, 387. 

Judzo-Christianity, gradual isolation 
of, from Catholicism, 16. 

Judaism, golden age of, 2; re- 
semblance of first century, to 
primitive Catholicism, 1; transfor- 
Mation of, into the Church, Bousset 
on, 4; date of expansion of, in the 
Greek cities, 2; geographical ex- 
pansion of, in New ‘Testament 
times, Bousset on, 1; Hellenized, 8, 
9; Hellenized and Pharisaic, con- 
trasted, 16; Pharisaic, claims of, 9; 
as a “wisdom”? (copia), 6. 

Judaizers, the, attitude of, towards St. 
Paul, 58, 59,61, 63; not synonymous 
with Jewish Christians, 60; at- 
tacked in the Pastoral Epistles, 116; 
St. Paul warns the Philippians 
against, 9. 

Jiilicher, on term ‘“‘ heresy,” 115; on 
character of St. Matthew’s Gospel, 
xili, 82. 

Julius, Pope, Kusebians rebuked by, for 
deposition of Athanasius, 328. 

Juvenal, on Roman proselytes to 
Judaism, 14, 15. 


KATTENBUSCH, on date of the Roman 
Symbol, 160. 

Kingdom of God, the, teaching of 
Jesus on, 75-7, 79; not identical 
with the Church, 76; in the Gospels, 
character of, Loisy on, 78, 79. 

“ Kingdom of Heaven, Keys οἵ, force 
of the expression, 90. 

Kreyenbiihl, on Christ’s Promise to St. 
Peter, 95, 96. 


Larry AND CLERICS, distinguished in 
‘**Clementis Prima,” 127; rights and 
powers of, St. Cyprian on, 340. 

** Laos,” Jewish communities called, 
in inscriptions, 4. 

Lapsi, the, question of, St. Cyprian on, 
350-4, 378; refusal of Bishop of 
Arles to follow practice of reconcilia- 
tion of, 378. 

Lectorate, the, St. Cyprian on, 338. 

Lightfoot, on functions and powers of 
the Christian Hierarchy, 98; on 
authorship of the ‘“‘ Epistle to Diog- 
netus,’ 179; on the pre-Christian 
origin of Gnosticism, 100. 


419 


Logia, the, Papias on, 172. 

Loisy, on the beginnings of the Church 
in the Gospels, 78; on the origin of 
the idea of the Church, 76; on the 
character of the Kingdom of God in 
the Gospels, 78, 79; on the non- 
authenticity of John xxi, 81; on 
date of St. Matthew’s Gospel, 89; 
on Christ’s promise to St. Peter 
and the Roman Primacy, 91. 


Maeunvs, letter of St. Cyprian to, on 
the rebaptism of heretics, 381-3. 

Marcianus, the case of, and St. 
Cyprian, 378-80. 

Marcion, Duchesne on, 230; Harnack 
on, 237; St. Justin Martyr on, 233, 
234; Tertullian’s polemic against, 
235-7; his Canon of Scripture, 235, 
236; encounter of, with St. Poly- 
carp, 231. 

Marcionite, the, Rule of Faith, 236. 

Marcionites, the, Tertullian on, 233. 

Marriages, mixed, hostility of the Jews 
to, 3. 

Mithraism, its organizations and 
manner of growth contrasted with 
those of Christianity, 33. 

Mohler, on the Church’s testimony to 
herself, 144. 

Montanism, rise and character of, 
163, 217-21; effect of, on Catho- 
licism, 163; condemned by the 
Roman Church, 285, 286; con- 
demned by Serapion, 220, 221; op- 
position of all Christendom to, 221 ; 
regional differentiations of, 407; 
Eusebius on, 221; as a revival of 
the ‘‘ Prophetic Spirit,” Sabatier 
on, 148 ; asa “spiritual”? movement, 
28; Tertullian on, 283, 284; con- 
version of Tertullian to, 264; Ter- 
tullian’s reason for embracing, St. 
Jerome on, 285. 

Montanist, Tertullian as, 286-93. 

Montanists, the, appeal of, to Rome 
for recognition, 222. 

Montanus, disowned by the Church, 
284; raptures of, described, 220. 

Moses, the Greek philosophers as dis- 
ciples of, 7. 


NERO, persecution of the Christians 
by, 17, 20, 25-8: Duchesne on, 25, 
26; Orosius on, 26; Tertullian on, 
26, 27; reason of, Suetonius on, 27, 
28; favour of, to the Jews, 20; sus- 
pected of setting fire to Rome, 20. 

Novatian Schism, the, Novatian and 
Novatus, 356, 357; and St. Cyprian, 
354-7, 361, 


PA a 


a 


420 


PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


OriGEN, on Christian Asceticism, 304; | Papias, appeal of, to Apostolic Tradi- 


on Apostolic Succession, 310, 311; 
on Baptism, 298, 304; on the pre- 
paration of candidates for Baptism, 
298; on the Baptismal Symbols, 
312; on the Canon of Scripture, 
311; on use of term “ Catholic,’ 
324; on Catechumens, 298, 304; on 
Celsus, 193; on the Church as a 
living magisterilum, 313; on the 
corruption of morals in the Church, 
299, 308; on the office of Doctors 
in the Church, 314, 315; on the dif- 
ference between the Church and the 
philosophical schools, 298; on the 
Pagan “ Church”’ as contrasted with 
the Christian, 323; on the Church 
as contrasted with the Synagogue, 
324; on the nature and unity of the 
Church, 300, 322-5; on the results 
of Christianity being embraced by 
the Romans, 330, 331; on the Greek 
philosophy in relation to Christian- 
ity, 296; Christianity and Judaism 
__contrasted by, 330 ; Pagan calumnies 
against Christianity rebutted by, 
295, 296; on the universality of 
Christianity, 295: on the refusal of 
some Christians to enter Army, 330; 
on the high moral character of the 
Christians, 330; on the development 
of Dogma, 321; appeal of, to Hc- 
clesiastical Tradition and Authority 
against heresy, 309-11, 317, 319, 
320; on the exercise of excommuni- 
cation by the Church, 298; on 
Esoteric and Exoteric Christian 
Doctrine, 314; letter of, to Fabian, 
Bishop of Rome, defending his 
orthodoxy, 328; on the rational 
grounds of Faith, 296; on the Four 
Gospels, 311; polemic of, against 
heretics, 316-21; relations of, with 
the heretic: Paul at Alexandria, 297 ; 
on Christ’s Promise to St. Peter, 
808, 326; corruptions of the Chris- 
tian Priesthood denounced by, 304, 
305; deposed from the Priesthood 
by Demetrius of Alexandria, 327, 
328; on the value of Greek philo- 
sophy, 295, 314, 315 ; and the Roman 
See, 327-29; on the spiritual sense 
of Scripture, 312; on Virgins, 304. 
Orosius, on the Neronic Persecution, 


PantTarnNnus, Anastasius Sinaita on, 
179, 181; Clement of Alexandria on, 
178, 179, 181; Eusebius on, 180; 
preacher of the Gospel in Arabia or 
India, 399. 


tion, 172, 173; inquiries of, into the 
Old Testament Canon, 173; rela- 
tions of, with St. John the Presby- 
ter, 173; on the Logia, 172. 

Paschal Controversy, the, 222-7. 

Pastoral Epistles, the, authorship and 
character of, 114-9; analysis of, 
Holtzmann on, 119. 

Paul of Samosata, condemned by 
council at Antioch, 328; deposition 
of, intervention of Emperor in, 329. 

Paul, St., defence of his apostolic 
character by, 42-7; as Jewish 
apostle, 89; as Apostle of the Un- 
circumcision, 47 ; use of term ‘‘ apos- 
tle’? by, 40, 41; denunciation of 
‘false apostles” by, 42; relations 
of, with the Jerusalem apostles, 46, 
47; on the Apostles as foundation 
of the Church, 101; on Charismata, 
29, 30; on the unity of the Church, 
67, 73; on use of term ‘“ Church,” 
70-3; on the solidarity and duties 
of Christians, 67-69, 73; on the 
character and credentials of the 
Gospel, 64, 66; attitude of the 
Judaizers towards, 58, 59, 61, 63; 
the Philippians warned against the 
Judaizers by, 9; teaching of, on 
justification, identical with St. 
Peter’s, 61-4; martyrdom of, at 
Rome, 26, 277; founder of the 
Roman Church, with St. Peter, 


203; sole reference of, to ‘The 
Twelve,’ 48. 
Paulinism, approved of and en- 


couraged by the Jerusalem Apostles, 
57, 58. 

Pella, Jerusalem Christians flee to, 
240. 

Penance, public, for grave sins, 344 ; 
remission of, by martyrs, 350, 351. 

Perea, when annexed to Judea, 1. 

Persecution, of the Christians, by 
Decius, 341, 350, 356; by Domitian, 
26; by Nero, 17, 20, 25, 26; by Pliny 
the Younger, 22-4; by Valerian, 257, 
333. 

‘‘ Peter, the Preaching of,” 243. 

Peter, St., as Apostle of the Circumci- 
sion, 47; visit of, to Cornelius, 15; 
as founder of Roman Church, with 
St. Paul, St. Ireneus on, 203; con- 
nection of, with St. Mark, Clement 
of Alexandria on, 247 ; martyrdom 
of, at Rome, 26, 277; place of, 
among the Apostles in the primitive 
Christian community, Harnack on, 
xiv; adhesion of, to St. Paul’s 
doctrine of justification, 61-4; con- 


INDEX 


ference of, with St. Paul at Jeru- 
salem, 46, 47; prerogatives of, 
Origen on, 326, 327; primacy of, 
Weizsacker on, 92; promise to, 
Christ’s, xiii, 84-6, 89-91; Harnack 
on, xii, xiii; Kreyenbiihl] on, 95, 
96; Origen on, 308, 326; Resch on, 
84; Tertullian on, 291, 292, 359; 
Wellbausen on, xiii; as justifying 
Roman Primacy, Loisy on, 91; as 
establishing Episcopacy, St. Cyprian 
on, 352, 353; chair of, the source of 
the unity of the priesthood, St. 
Cyprian on, 374; the bishops of 
Rome successors of, 411; apocry- 
phal epistle of, to St. James, 243-5, 
ἐν Petri Prima,’ date of, 111; on 
Charismata, 113. 

Pharisaic Tradition, 
transmitters, 9. 

Philo of Alexandria, use of allegorical 
method by, 8; as Hellenizer, 8; 
legendary meeting of, with St. Peter 
at Rome, 19. 

Pindar, apocryphal texts attributed 
to, in interests of Judaism, 7. 

Pliny the Elder, on the Jewish attitude 
towards idolatry, 3. 

Pliny the Younger, correspondence 
of, with Trajan on Christianity in 
Bithynia, 22-4, 407; persecution of 
the Bithynian Christians by, 22-4. 

Polycarp, St., dispute of, with Anicetus 
on the Easter Question, 169, 170, 
222; relations of, with the Apostles, 
St. Irenzus on, 204; relations of, 
with SS. John the Apostle and 
Irenzus, 167; date of martyrdom 
of, 166 ; encounter of, with Marcion, 
231; Epistle of, to the Philippians, 
165, 166, 168. 

“ Polycarpi, Martyrium,” 170. 

Polycrates, intervention of, in the 
Paschal Controversy, 223-5. 

Pontius, on St. Cyprian’s conduct as 
priest, 337. 

Pope (Papa), when first applied to the 
Bishop of Rome, 290, 304; originally 
title of all bishops, 290. 

Prayer (προσευχή), term applied to a 
synagogue, 6. 

Presbyterate, the, as identical with the 
Episcopate, Theodore of Mopsuestia 
on, 117. 

Presbyters, College of, 117. 

Presbyters of the Synagogue, 6. 

Presbyters, see under ““ Hierarchy.”’ 

Presbyters, Tradition of, St. Irenzeus 
on, 202; Papias on, 172. 

‘Prescription,’ use of 
Tertullian, 272. 


the, and its 


term by 


421 


Priesthood, Jewish, the, full control of, 
by the Sadducees, 8. 

Prophets, the “ Didaché”’ on, 109. 

Prophets, Pseudo-, Hermas on, 218. 

Proselyte, Jewish, conditions of be- 
coming, 11, 12; initiation of, 
“Gerim” on, 11; “ unclean,’ 7 days 
after circumcision, 13. 

Proselytes of the Gate, Schiirer on, 11, 
15, 16. 

Proselytes of Righteousness, 11, 13, 
15. 

Proselytes, Jewish, designation of, in 
inscriptions, 10; hatred of, for non- 
Jews, 15; large number of, 10. 

Proselytism, Jewish, brief survival of, 
after destruction of Jerusalem, 16. 

Pythagoras, as a disciple of Moses, 7. 


QUARTODECIMANS, the, condemned by 
bishops of Palestine in synod, 240; 
excommunicated by Pope Victor, 
226, 227. 

Quintus, letter of St. Cyprian to, on 
invalidity of heretical baptism, 385, 
386. 


RaBBINIsM, the essence of, 9. 

Reformation, the, Harnack on, xxi. 

Renan, on the nature of the primitive 
Church, 150; on Charismata, 150; 
on Rome’s réle in the genesis of 
Catholicism, 157. 

Resch, on Christ’s Promise to St. 
Peter, 84. 

Ritschlian theory, the, of the forma- 
tion of Catholicism, 237. 

Roman Primacy, recognized by Aure- 
lian, 329; St. Ignatius on, 140-2. 
Roman See, the, first record of appeal 
to, 130; recognized by St. Cyprian 
as mother of the Catholic Church, 
401; as the ‘‘ Place of Peter,” St. 
Cyprian on, 402; special importance 
of, recognized by St. Cyprian, 401; 
attitude of Decius towards, 401, 408 ; 
pre-eminence of, shown by the ap- 
peal of Felicissimus and Basilides, 

380. 

Rome, burning of in 64, 17, 20; the 
Christians charged with, 20. 

Rossi, De, on Christianity and the 
Burial Clubs, 34. 

Rule of Faith, the, St. Irenszeus on, 
198, 199; insufficiency of Scripture 
as, St. Ignatius on, 136, 137; Mar- 
cionite, 236; Tertullian on, 267, 273, 
275, 281, 282. 


the formation of 
145-63; on Charis- 


SABATIER, on 
Catholicism, 


422 


PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


mata, 150, 151; his ‘Religions of | St. Cyprian, life, teaching and times 


Authority,’ 145; on Montanism as 
revival of. the “ Prophetic Spirit,” 
148; on the Symbol of the Apostles, 
148, 160. 

Sabbath, the, wide vogue of, Josephus 
on, 14. 

Sacrifice, the Holy, offered by bishops 
and priests, 336. 

Sadducees, the, full control of the 
Jewish priesthood by, 8; wealth of, 
at Jerusalem, 32. 

Schiirer, on ‘“ Proselytes of the Gate,” 
male allay alley 

Scripture, disputable books of, Celsus 
on, 247; insufficiency of, as a Rule 
of Faith, St. Ignatius on, 136, 137; 
heretical appeal to, Tertullian on, 
967, 269; value of, as compared with 
Greek philosophy, Origen on, 314, 
315. 

Seneca, on the penetration of heathen 
environments by Jewish customs, 
14. 

Septimius Severus, measures of, 
against the Jews and the Christians, 
249. 

Septuagint, the, date of, 7; antipathy 
of the Zealots to, 7. 

Serapion, condemnation of Montanism 
by, 220, 221. 

Shamma and the Pharisaic Tradition, 
9. 

Shammai, school of, on lawfulness of 
circumcised Gentiles eating the 
Pasch, 18. 

Simon Magus, St. Justin Martyr on, 
190; as heresiarch, Tertullian on, 
971; heretics connected with, ac- 
cording to orthodox writers, 215. 

Simon the Just and the Pharisaic 
Tradition, 9. 

Sohm, on Charismata, xvii, xx; 
on Christian origins, xvi-xxi; on 
the part played by the Episcopate 
in the primitive Church, 54; on 
‘*Clementis Prima,” 130. 

Sophocles, apocryphal texts attributed 
to, in interests of Judaism, 7. 

Soter, Pope, charity of, 185. 

St. Clement of Rome, ‘“ Clementis 
Prima,” xviii, xx, xxii, 122-31; 
“Clementis Prima,” principles of 
canon in, 126; ‘‘ Clementis Prima,” 
Roman Catholicism in, Harnack on, 
xi; ‘‘Clementis Prima,” on Charis- 
mata, 123; ‘“Clementis Secunda,” 
181-4; ‘“‘Clementis Secunda’ on 
Baptism, 182-4; ‘‘Clementis Se- 
cunda’’ on the nature of the Chureh, 
183, 184. 


of, 332-66; on almsgiving as ex- 
piation, 344; on equality of the 
Apostles, 358, 364; on Apostolic 
Succession, 335; on Aurelius the 
Martyr, 338; on forgiveness of sins 
after Baptism, 344; on invalidity of 
heretical baptism, letter to Jubai- 
anus, 387, 396, 397; on invalidity of 
heretical baptism, letter to Bishop 
of Numidia, 383, 384; on invalidity 
of heretical baptism, letter to 
Quintus, 385, 386; primacy of, over 
bishops of Africa, 345; on autonomy 
of bishops, 388, 389; on bishops’ 
power of excommunication, 342, 
343 ; philanthropic work of the 
Church in time of, 341, 342; on the 
unity of the Church, 348, 355, 358, 
359, 363-65; on the Church as the 
one ark of salvation, 359, 382; on 
the remuneration of the clergy by 
the Church, 339; on the oil of 
chrism, 384; views of, on Epis- 
copacy, 365; and the case of Feli- 
cissimus, 353, 354, 356, 373-5; and 
the case of Fortunatianus, 377; 
on heretics, 382, 383; on ecclesi- 
astical unity as opposed to heresy, 
358; letter of, to Magnus on re- 
baptism of heretics, 381-3; on in- 
validity of heretical sacraments, 
361, 381-6, 388, 391, 396, 397, 400; 
on the powers and functions of the 
Christian Hierarchy, 333-6, 338-47, 
351, 352; on the question of the 
Lapsi, 340, 350-4, 378; on the 
Lectorate, 338; denunciation of 
Marcianus by, 378, 379, 380; and 
the case of Martialis and Basilides, 
375, 376; and the Novatian Schism, 
354-7, 861; on Christ’s promise to 
St. Peter, as establishing EHpis- 
copacy, 352, 358, 358, 361-3, 365; 
on St. Peter as founder of the 
Roman Church, 362; on St. Peter’s 
Chair as source of the unity of the 
priesthood, 374; episcopal autonomy 
maintained by, 391; conduct of, as 
priest, Pontius on, 337; on nature 
of primacy of the Roman See, 364; 
on schismatics, 358, 360, 361, 382, 
383; letters of, to Pope Stephen, 
379, 380, 386, 387, 389; reply of 
Pope Stephen to, 388, 389; refusal 
of, to listen to Stephen’s delegates, 
386; ‘‘ De Unitate ” of, its date and 
occasion of publication, 357; ‘‘ De 
Unitate’’ of, its argument, 365; 
‘““De Unitate” of, editions of, 366- 
72; “De Unitate,’ question of 


INDEX 


interpolations in, 366-72; Dom 
Chapman on, 371-2. 

St. Jerome, on the Judzo-Christian- 
ity of Palestine, 242; on Tertullian’s 
reasons for embracing Montanism, 
285. 

St. John the Apostle, relations of, with 
SS. Polycarp and Irenzeus, 167, 204. 

St. Justin Martyr, the Apologies of, v, 
188, 191; his “Dialogue with 
Trypho,” 188, 191, 193; on Apos- 
tolic Tradition, 189; rite of Baptism 
described by, 189; on prophetic 
charismata, 219; on the attempt of 
the Jewish apostles to undermine 
Christianity, 38; on the universal 
vogue of Christianity, 189; on the 
Gnostics, 190-3; on Marcion, 233, 

_ 234; on Simon Magus, 190; ‘‘Syn- 
tagma’”’ of, 187, 188. 

St. Mary, as ‘‘the spotless Virgin,” in- 
scription of Abercius on, 177, 178. 
St. Mark, connection of, with St. 
Peter, Clement of Alexandria on, 

247. 

St. Matthew’s Gospel, date of, accord- 
ing to various authorities, 81, 82, 89; 
origin and character of, Harnack on, 
81, 82; character of, Jiilicher on, 
xiii, 82; ecclesiastical character of, 
xii; teaching of, on the Church, 
83, 87; a work of the Palestinian 
Church, xiii, xiv, 81. 

Stephen, Pope, on the validity of 
heretical baptism, 387, 389, 390, 
392; on the ex opere operato efficacy 
of Baptism, 397; appeal of Basilides 
to, 375, 376; letter of St. Cyprian to, 
380, 386, 387, 389; reply of, to St. 
Cyprian, 388, 389; on the Roman 
Primacy, 389, 390; reply of third 
Council of Carthage to, 391; letter 
of Dionysius of Alexandria to, 398; 
policy of, Dionysius of Alexandria 
on, 396. 

Strabo, on the polity of the Jewish 
community in Egypt, 4; on the 
functions of the Jewish Ethnarch 
in Egypt, 4. 

Suetonius, character of, as historian, 
27; on the expulsion of the Jews 
from Rome by Claudius, 18; on the 
reasons of the Neronic persecution, 
27, 28. 

Sulpicius Severus, on the Jewish 
origin of Christianity, 21; on Titus 
ou the burning of the Temple, 

ie 

Sunday, celebration of the Eucharist 
on 67, 107. 

Symbol of the Apostles, the, 160-2; 


423 


and Gnosticism, 161; Sabatier on, 
148, 160. 

Symbol, the Roman, Kattenbusch on 
date of, 160. 

Symbols of Faith, Hastern and Roman, 
160, 161. 

Symmachus, commentary of, on the 
Gospel of the Hebrews, 243. 

“Synagogue,” original and derivative 
meanings of term, 69. 

Synagogue, the, date of introduction, 
6; hierarchy and polity of, 6; called 
a “prayer” (προσευχή), 6; presi- 
dent of, 6; presbyters of, 6. 

Synagogue, the Great, and Pharisaic 
Tradition, 9. 


Tacttus, on the character of primitive 
Christianity, 17, 20; on Christian 
origins, 17; on Jewish exclusive- 
ness and hostility towards foreigners, 
5; on Jewish monotheism and anti- 
idolatry, 13. 

Tertullian, date and life of, 264; on 
Apostolic Tradition, 269, 270, 273, 
274, 276; on Apostolic Succession, 
269, 274 ; on Baptism, 277, 278, 387 ; 
conversion of, to Montanism, 264 ; 
as Montanist, 292, 293; polemic of, 
against Pope Callistus in ‘‘ De Pudi- 
citia,’’ 288, 290, 291; his conception 
of the Church, 128, 277; his defini- 
tion of Christianity, vi, 36; in- 
debtedness of St. Cyprian to, 332; 
on Kbion as heresiarch, 271; on the 
resemblance of Gnosticism to Greek 
philosophy, 265, 266; onthe sources 
and characteristics of heresy, 265-76, 
279, 280; on the heretical appeal to 
Scripture, 267, 269 ; on the functions 
and powers of the Christian Hier- 
archy, 279, 280; attack of, on the 
Christian Hierarchy, 286-8, 290, 291 ; 
polemic of, against Marcion, 235-7; 
on the Marcionites, 233; on the 
Neronic Persecution, 26, 27; on St. 
Peter, 277; on Christ’s Promise to 
St. Peter, 359 ; ‘‘ Prescriptione, De” 
of, 271-6; use of term ‘‘ prescrip- 
tion’’ by, 272; on Rome as the 
centre of unity, 277; on the Rule 
of Faith, 267, 273, 275, 281, 282; on 
Simon Magus as heresiarch, 271; on 
the Valentinians, 333. 

Thebutis, corruption of the Jerusalem 
Church by, 175, 240. 

Theodore of Mopsuestia, on the iden- 
tity of the Episcopate and Presby- 
terate, 117. 

Tiberius, expulsion of Jews from Rome 


by, 3. 


424 


Titus, deliberation of, on the burning 
of the Temple, 21. 

Toleration, religious, and the Roman 
State, 17, 18. 

Trajan, letter of, to Pliny on principles 
to be pursued in all measures against 
the Christians, 25. 

“ Trypho, Dialogue with,” St. Justin’s, 
188, 191, 193. 

“Twelve, the,” in the Acts, 50, 51; in 
the Apocalypse, 48, 52; in the 
Gospels, 48-50; St. Paul’s sole re- 
ference to, 48; right of supervision 
exercised by, Weizsaicker on, 51; 
not exhaustive of number of dis- 
ciples, 51, 52. 


VALENTINIANS, the, Tertullian on, 233. 
Valerian, edict of, and persecution of 
the Christians by, 257, 333. 


Victor, Pope, as author of ‘De 


PRIMITIVE CATHOLICISM 


Aleatoribus,’”’ Harnack on, 363; ex- 
communication of the Hastern 
Churches by, 226, 227; his power of 
excommunication not questioned by 
St. Irenezus, 228; intervention of, 
in the Paschal Controversy, 222, 223, 
225-7; letter of, to Polycrates on 
the Paschal Controversy, 223-5. 


Wattz, on the source of the Clemen- 
tines, 243. 

Weizsacker, on St. Peter’s Primacy, 
92; on right of supervision exercised 
by “‘ The Twelve,” 51. 

Wellhausen, on the term ‘‘ Church,” 
87; on St. Matthew’s teaching con- 
cerning the Church, 83; on Christ’s 
Promise to St. Peter, xiii. 


Xystus, Pope, renewal of relations 
between Rome and Africa by, 396. 


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